


Seek to Know You Better

by ahurston



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 36 questions, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Background Sam/Eileen, Getting Together, M/M, Minor Case Fic, Mutual Pining, My Kink is Conversation Okay, Post-Hypothetical Season 15, Road Trip, Slow Burn, They Talk and Talk and Talk and Talk, canon-typical alcohol use, one bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-07
Updated: 2020-12-19
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:49:08
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26869954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ahurston/pseuds/ahurston
Summary: Dean and Cas, a long stretch of highway, and 36 questions empirically designed to make two people fall in love.As if they weren't already.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 334
Kudos: 1540





	1. Chapter 1

“Are you ready to head out?” Cas asks, tapping on the doorframe of Dean’s room. 

Dean turns from where he’s stuffing t-shirts and boxers into his duffel and does a double take at the two-day scruff on Cas’ face. It looks...good. Mostly-human Cas usually looks good. 

“We going as forest rangers on this job or did you lose your razor again?” Dean blurts out, before his traitor brain can land on an adjective. 

Cas rubs at his chin. “Hm, maybe you’re right. A little long for the FBI. I’ll go shave.”

“No! Uh. I mean, it’s fine. The Bureau loosened their personal grooming standards back in ‘11...so.”

Cas squints at him. “Okay, well. In that case. If you’re ready, I’ll go load the car.”

Dean swallows, nods. 

“I googled our destination this morning,” Cas says, breezing past the awkwardness or, more likely, not noticing it at all. “It looks as though there isn’t a motel within a hundred miles. Should I pack the tent?”

“Uh, pass. I am too fuckin’ old for camping.” Dean can feel a crick in his neck just thinking about it. The hard ground beneath his back, he and Cas a hairsbreadth apart in a military surplus pup tent, no else around...who knows what might happen. 

Cas opens his mouth to protest, so Dean cuts him off. “And no, before you give me that bit about my ancestors sleeping on a pile of boulders under the stars while your ageless ass watched over them from a gnarled sycamore tree or whatever the fuck, spare me. I need a bed.”

Cas laughs. “Alright, Dean. The hunt sounds easy enough. It shouldn’t be an issue to make it to the motel after, to rest.”

*

Turns out, it is an issue. The hunt takes forever when they have to dig up not one but _six_ unmarked graves in the middle of Nowhere, Arkansas to find the vengeful ghost taking out her frustrations on the family down the road. 

Dean is that shitty combination of tired and wired when he finally slides back behind the steering wheel of the Impala after midnight, sweaty and covered in graveyard dirt. 

“How far is the closest motel again?” he asks with a yawn.

“An eighty-seven minute drive,” Cas says, slumping against the passenger side window. “If you speed.”

“Uh,” Dean blinks through the grit in his eyes and tries to assess if he’s going to drive them into a ditch if he tries to be a hero. “Hey, hand me that box of tapes. If we get some Metallica going, I can do this.” 

“Actually, I was wondering if you wanted to pass the time another way,” Cas says, throwing him a considering glance.

Dean’s brain shoots off in a colorful direction he would never admit to. 

“Oh, sure. I’m down for anything. I mean, uh, what did you have in mind?”

“A conversation.”

“Uh, like a planned thing?" Dean says with no small amount of dread, stomach sinking as he mentally sorts through the various cargo ships of baggage they have between them. He pulls the car out of the gravel parking lot, now wide-awake and vaguely nauseous. "You got something you wanna get off your chest?”

“No, nothing like that. I ran across an interesting journal article the other day, a study of questions designed to improve a relationship's intimacy. I thought we could try them.”

“You think we need to improve our -” Dean gulps. “That.”

Cas smiles. “It’s not a remark on the strength of our connection, Dean. Quite the contrary. I would always seek to know you better.”

Dean scratches at the back of his neck. “You fuckin’ rebuilt me, man. What else is there to know?”

“Well, the first question is, ‘Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?’ Surprisingly, I couldn’t ascertain your answer from when I reassembled your lymphatic system.”

“Sure, okay. Wait - point of clarification. Famous person or, uh, one of the many people I’ve buried or burned over the years?”

In Dean’s peripheral vision, he sees Cas’ eyes go soft, sad.

“I have no doubt as to your desire to speak to those who you’ve lost, Dean. You’ve grieved far more than your fair share. For the sake of novelty, let’s refine the question to be anyone you don’t know personally.”

“Living or dead?”

“The question doesn’t specify, so let’s say either.”

It seems like an easy question, but he draws a blank as his mind spins through a myriad assortment of porn stars and rock stars and Mother Teresa. “Oh man. So many options. You go first.”

"Fred Rogers," Cas says quickly with a decisive nod. 

"Like, 'It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood,' Mr. Rogers?"

"Yes. I've had enough of cosmic grandeur. Fred was a truly decent man, ahead of his time. I visited his heaven once."

"How was it?"

"Exactly as you would expect. Dinner with his family, making a difference in the life of a child - those sorts of things. He had an enviable clarity of purpose."

"That's, uh, something you've always wanted."

"I know my purpose now, Dean," Cas says seriously. "It hasn't truly changed since I met you." 

Dean doesn't realize he's stopped looking at the road until he registers Cas’ hand next to his on the steering wheel, keeping them from driving into oncoming traffic. Dean shakes himself and tries to focus on anything except _'since I met you.'_

“Did you decide on your dinner guest?” Cas says, the tips of his fingers brushing against Dean’s as he lets go of the wheel.

“Oh. Your answer seems pretty great. Sure beats anything I was coming up with, so, same.”

“It’s purely subjective,” Cas says. “And you’re welcome to be my plus-one for dinner with Mr. Rogers, if that helps.”

“In that case, Keanu Reeves,” Dean says. “He builds motorcycles, had a shitty dad, and might be immortal. Figure we’d have a lot to talk about.”

“He once tried to buy me an ice cream on the Santa Monica Pier.”

“No way.”

“Yes. It was early in my time on earth, and he must have mistaken my bewilderment at a food truck that sold chicken and waffle ice cream sandwiches for abject poverty. He’s a good choice for a dining companion.”

“Well, thanks. So what’s the next question?” Dean asks, curious.

Cas looks down at his phone. “Hm. I think we might need to rework this one.”

“What do you mean?”

“The question is, ‘Would you like to be famous? In what way?’ I’m sure you see the issue. We’ve both already been famous, or at least infamous. Me, as a megalomaniacal would-be deity and you as -”

“A serial killer on the FBI’s most wanted list, yeah," Dean says with a cringe. Not his finest hour. 

“Actually, lest you forget, you are also a co-star in a cult favorite book series," Cas corrects him. "Criminal notoriety might last for only a moment, but fan devotion to a character can last for decades. Or so I’ve heard.”

“Still reading Star Trek fan fiction, huh.”

“The complexities in that piece of media are made all the more multifaceted by thousands of individual interpretations,” Cas says haughtily. “I think it's beautiful." 

Dean bites back a grin, but really, who is he to judge. He’s _LARPed_ , for fucks sake. 

"And if I feel a sense of vague kinship with Spock, that's -"

"None of my business," Dean says. 

Cas nods. "Okay, the second part of the question. 'In what way' you would like to be famous."

"Huh. Never thought about that. Being famous - infamous, whatever - was never really something I had any control over."

Cas hums, letting Dean decide if there's more he wants to say. Dean tries to remind himself that Cas actually _wants_ to know this shit. He asked, after all. And there’s no one around to judge him for it. Just him and Cas, a couple of buds on a dark highway on the way to a no-name motel, answering intimate questions about themselves. Fuck.

"I guess, it'd be cool if people knew about the good stuff too, maybe."

"You have contributed much to the preservation and betterment of humanity. It's understandable that you would like recognition."

"No, no, that's not it. I don't want to get recognized on street corners like fuckin' Spiderman or something. Kinda the opposite. I...think I wanna be the guy in town people like, the guy who mows the yard for the old lady next door and buys out all the Girl Scout cookies every year. Normal shit."

Next to him, Cas is quiet long enough that Dean starts to panic that he said something fucked up by accident. Wouldn’t be the first time. 

"You deserve to be known as a good man, Dean," Cas finally says, his voice low and serious.

Dean's hands twist on the steering wheel, and he blinks a couple quick times. It's goddamn dusty out here in the country. 

"Okay, so, what about you?" Dean asks, grateful for the back-and-forth nature of this to give him a break from baring his soul.

"In what way I would wish to be famous? Much like you, I think. To be known by those around me as dependable. For others to think of me as a worthwhile friend. You most of all."

"Cas, man, you gotta know -"

"I know there have been times when I...wasn't those things. That's what I would hope to set right."

Dean wants to argue. He wants to tell him that none of it matters, that all is forgiven, that he’s done shit too, but he settles for awkwardly reaching over to pat Cas’ knee. He’s already said everything he needs to say, forgiven Cas a hundred times over. He knows - it’s not about him. 

"I think we dicked this question up. Pretty sure the answer is supposed to be like, 'pitch a no-hit game in the World Series' or something," Dean says after he realizes he’s left his hand on Cas’ knee for more than a normal amount of time. Thankfully, Cas doesn’t seem to notice. 

"I'd say we understand better than most that what really matters is the way a person is known to be in life, and remembered in death, by those they loved."

Dean has nothing to add to that. Cas is right, after all. Dean has done more than his share of remembering, of sifting out the good from the bad from someone’s life at the side of a burning pyre. Hell, he’s done that for Cas. More than once. 

He’s relieved when he sees a worn sign advertising accommodations three miles west. The conversation goes quiet as he takes the next exit, and then he’s pulling Baby in front of the motel office. He can't think of anything to say, but he’s itching to touch Cas again. He settles for clapping a hand on Cas' shoulder before he gets out of the car. If he lets it linger a little longer than necessary, he hopes that gets the message across. 

*

Cas showers first, at Dean's insistence. Ever since the battle with Chuck zapped all but the barest hint of his grace, Dean's been trying to make it up to him. He's fully aware that dibs on the bathroom in a dump like this can't compare to the power to bend space and time, but it's just about all Dean has to offer. He's been trying to drag Cas out with him to the area watering holes to help him pick up some nice girl for weeks, but Cas always turns him down. Dean is secretly grateful. 

Dean is cleaning his gun at the dinette table when Cas mumbles something through the bathroom door. Dean had been so deep in his head about why Cas doesn't seem interested in humanity's best consolation prize that he didn't hear the water shut off. 

"What's that, buddy?" Dean says, leaning toward the bathroom.

"I said, can you hand me my clothes? I seem to have forgotten them."

Weird. Dean has seen Cas buck-ass naked more times than he can count. He’s a goddamn pro at not making it weird. What the hell is different now?

"You alright?" Dean asks, trying to remember if he’s been staring any more than usual lately. Maybe he made the guy uncomfortable, fuck. It’s just, anyone would agree Cas is more than a little stare-worthy. Dean has _eyes_ , and sometimes what emerges from the bunker’s shower room is objectively, well. A little hot. 

"Yes, I just. I'm fine. My clothes, please."

"Oookay." Dean turns to look for Cas' bag, pawing through until he finds a shirt, some sweatpants, and simple, black underwear he's really gonna try not to think about. 

He taps on the bathroom door gently. Cas cracks it open just wide enough to reach out and grab the stack in Dean’s hands.

“Thank you,” Cas mutters before clicking the door shut.

Dean tries to shake off the weirdness, deciding not to be a little offended that Cas apparently doesn’t want to get naked around him anymore. He imagines how that conversation would go. _Hey man, I miss seeing your bare ass from time to time. What gives?_

By the time they’ve swapped places and Dean is clean, dry, and wrapped in his best Dead Guy Robe, Cas is already asleep, the rise and fall of his chest visible in the thin lines of light let through by the motel’s shitty blinds.

Dean settles into the other bed and stares at the ceiling, letting Cas' gentle breathing and the distant whir of semi-trucks on the highway send him to sleep.

*

At a Waffle House the next morning, Cas pulls out his phone to read off the next question as they wait for their food. 

“Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? If so, why?”

“You mean, for the job? Sometimes, I guess. This one time, Sam and I were pretending to be roller coaster inspectors for a haunting out on Coney Island, and -”

Cas smiles over the rim of his coffee cup. “I don’t think the researchers had hunting in mind when they developed this question.”

“Alright, so answer like a normie?” 

“Oh, definitely not,” Cas says, still smiling. “But perhaps, as I am well-versed in your competency at impersonating various trained and licensed professionals...”

“Got it. Then no. I don’t rehearse before phone calls. Who does that?”

“Besides myself? I’d imagine a lot of people do.”

“Wait, you?” Dean says, surprised. “Give me context here, when you’re ordering burgers at a drive thru?”

“What else is someone meant to do while waiting in line besides practice saying ‘I’d like a double number one with an iced tea, please’?”

“I don’t know, fuck around on your phone? Listen to the radio, literally anything else?”

Cas shrugs. 

“Okay, so just drive thrus?”

“Oh, no. Also for any phone call. If nothing else, to plan what to say in the event of reaching someone’s voicemail. It’s awkward otherwise.”

Dean laughs, that’s something he knows from firsthand experience.

“Do you practice when you call _me_?”

“Well, fortunately as we live together, there are fewer occasions when I need to -” 

The waitress chooses that moment to reappear, setting their plates down onto their table. Dean’s ears go red, realizing what she might have heard. What she might think. 

Cas’ eyes narrow at him, considering. 

“As I was saying, I have less of a need to call you now that I can simply knock on your door. Were you worried the waitress might make assumptions about our relationship based on -”

“No, what the hell. Why would I - it doesn’t matter if she...it’s fine.” Dean shrugs, convincing no one, least of all himself. 

“I apologize if the fact of our cohabitation embarrasses you,” Cas says. “I’m aware of your discomfort when a stranger mistakes your sexual preferences.”

“That’s not it.”

“It’s not?”

“No, I -” _just wish you meant what she thought you meant,_ Dean thinks. 

“I don’t mean to pry. As long as your offense wasn’t personal to me, I don’t mind.”

“The fuck? Why would it be personal to you? You’re way too good for me, man. Anyone with eyes can see that.”

Cas hums, noncommittal, and Dean is very aware that he’s being studied. 

“So how about another question?”

“Alright, let’s see. ‘What would constitute a ‘perfect’ day for you?’” Cas asks. 

The answering image comes to Dean’s mind so strong and quick that he nearly misses his mouth with his coffee cup when he tries to take a drink. 

“No need to overthink it. The first thing that occurred to you,” Cas prompts. 

Dean stalls a moment or two longer, eyes on his plate as he tries to look busy assembling a bite that contains the optimal ratio of hashbrowns to eggs to sausage.

“Uh, this one is pretty good,” he admits. “Throw in a slice of strawberry rhubarb pie from that place up in Brainerd and movie night back at the bunker with Sam and Jack, and I’m set.”

Cas smiles. 

“Thank you, Dean. I don’t take my inclusion lightly.”

“What about you, man? Bet you’ve got a ton of shit you could be doing that’d make for a day better than this one.”

“No.”

“No?”

“I don’t have ‘a ton of shit’ that would be preferable to spending time with you. Not a single shit, in fact.”

Dean laughs, shaking his head in disbelief. 

“Come on, you’ve watched mountains rise from the sea - those were your words. A greasy joint like this, some burnt coffee, and the pleasure of my company can’t possibly -”

“I could make plain the relative merits of a day with you compared to the reverent observation of nature’s wonders, but I am reasonably certain it would cause you embarrassment. You are, after all, alternately drawn to and repelled by others’ high regard for you.”

“Hey, that’s not...” Dean starts to deny on principle before thinking better of it. It’s not like he can lie convincingly to Cas anyway. “Well, actually, that’s fair.”

The waitress tops up their empty mugs, and Cas adds a number of sugar packets that would be distressing if he were fully human, in addition to a generous splash of cream. He sips at it contentedly. 

“So yes, to summarize, my perfect day is this one. Nobody I care for is in mortal danger, you and I are not in conflict, and despite what you may say, this coffee is excellent.”

“Whatever you say, buddy.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so this fic was started prior to the airing of 15x18. Bear that in mind. In my own brain, 15x18 was the last canon episode of the CW's Supernatural, but hasn't happened yet in the universe of this fic. What is time! What is canon! Who can say!


	2. Chapter 2

Dean tosses Cas the car keys after they pay their tab. It's either a gesture of trust or a medical necessity due to eating the All Star Breakfast past the age of 25. He slumps into his seat and lets out a contented and slightly pained sigh, letting Cas' navigate them out of the packed parking lot and back onto the interstate. 

"Hey, what's the list of questions called?" Dean asks after a beat. "I can read off the next one."

"Oh. Well..." Cas scrubs a hand through his hair. "That's okay. We can take a break."

“Nah, I’m invested now. Hit me.”

“If you Google the New York Times and ‘The 36 Questions that -” Cas trails off in an indecipherable mutter. 

“Didn’t catch that. What was it again? The 36 Questions that...oh. Huh. Found it.” 

It’s there, staring him in the face. _The 36 Questions that Lead to Love._

“Dean, I know what you’re thinking.” Dean is sure Cas does not, in fact, know. “But if you read the article, you'll see. The research behind it is peer-reviewed, it's science. It's... it's _peer-reviewed_."

"So you said."

"And besides, as you know, there are many kinds of love. As one might have for a comrade in arms, a friend, or a brother."

"Right." Dean's stomach sinks. Of course.

“If you don’t feel comfortable continuing -”

“No, I mean - yeah. Sure. We can keep going. Like you said, it’s a friend thing.”

Dean is certain he’s hallucinating the slight sag to Cas’ shoulders. It’s probably just relief. That’s all it is. He’s not _disappointed,_ for fuck’s sake. 

“Okay, next question,” Dean says. ‘When did you last sing to yourself, or to someone else?’ Alright, an easy one. I’ll go first. I sing to myself every day in the shower because I’m a red-blooded American. What about you?”

“I believe there was a second component to the question.”

“What?” Dean reads it again, and a memory springs unbidden to his mind. “When I sang to someone else? I don’t know. Never, I guess. Karaoke as a demon doesn’t count.”

“In no way do I intend to insult your powers of obfuscation, but sometimes, your ears take on the barest hint of color when you’re flustered,” Cas helpfully points out. 

“They do not. I’m a professional. I’m a fuckin’ warrior, I don’t _blush._ ”

“Of course, Dean. I misspoke. Occasionally, when you experience particular types of emotional stimulation, your capillaries undergo involuntary vasodilation.”

“Fine. Uh, 2010. At an open mic night in central Ohio - I sang a little something for Lisa.” Dean rubs at a scuff on the dash, and remembers the way Lisa had smiled at him so much brighter than he deserved for a few mumbled verses of ‘Walk the Line.’

“You loved her, Dean. I don’t see why that’s embarrassing.”

Dean grimaces. “You’re just going to have to take my word for it.”

“Would it make you feel better to learn that humans have been serenading their paramours for tens of thousands of years?” 

“No one says ‘paramours,’ Cas.”

Dean gets an eye roll in response. Castiel, Angel of the Lord, the sassiest soldier in the garrison. 

“Irrelevant. As I was saying, while most anthropologists identify the Divje Babe Flute as the world’s oldest known musical artifact, your ancestors actually began singing as soon as they gained the power of speech. And given that homo sapiens are not the only musically-inclined species, one could argue that music is intrinsic to life itself. Humpback whales, for example, sing especially well. I once observed a pod off the coast of Tupua'i, and the complexity of their song...Dean. It was so beautiful. The romantic devotion imbued in the lyrics -”

“Whale songs have _lyrics_? And you can understand them?”

Cas looks over at him, brow furrowed. “Yes? Is that a question? I can understand all tongues ever spoken on Earth, although unfortunately, this vessel isn’t capable of responding in kind.”

For a moment, Dean lets that sink in, only to be interrupted by the buzz of a news alert on his phone. He glances at his screen, scanning the article about a couple of corpses with missing gallbladders in Grand Rapids. 

“Hey, you wanna take another case?” Dean asks, aiming for casual nonchalance and landing in the range of obvious enthusiasm instead. “It’d be twelve hours northeast up I-44, but -”

“Of course,” Cas says simply, flipping on the turn signal before moving into the interstate on-ramp lane. "There is nothing else demanding my attention, and no one else’s company I would rather be in.” 

Dean tries not to preen, so he opts for clearing his throat instead. 

“Alright, man. You owe me an answer to the singing question.”

“Oh, right. You remember that night you saved me from a member of the Rit Zien while I was babysitting?”

*

Somewhere in central Missouri, Cas leans against the side of the car as Dean pumps the gas at a service station that looks straight out of a Jimmy Stewart movie. 

“‘If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?’” Cas reads off his phone. 

“Huh.” Dean hangs up the pump and settles in beside Cas, back resting against the sun-warmed driver’s side door. “Dude, you’re gonna have to help me on the math there. Are we counting years spent in hell? Purgatory? How old am I, anyway?”

Cas nudges him with his shoulder. “I think we should aim for the spirit rather than the letter of the question. Which would you rather preserve in its prime - brain, or brawn?”

“Well, everyone knows that Sam’s the -”

“If you make a disparaging remark about your intelligence, I will recite verbatim the organizational structure of your neural pathways,” Cas says in a near-growl. “All one hundred trillion of them.”

Dean laughs and lifts his hands in defeat. 

“Alright, alright. Brain, I guess. I’ve sure as shit seen enough of mindless muscle. What about you?”

“Given my choice to relinquish limitless access to grace - the angelic equivalent of a human 30 year old’s physical form, I suppose - my answer should be obvious.”

It’s not like Dean forgot. Not for a second. Instead, he feels the weight of all the shit Cas gave up so he could save the world and spend the rest of his days ganking baddies and complimenting Dean’s cooking. 

“It was the right call, Dean,” Cas says quietly. “I don’t regret it.”

Dean scrubs a hand through his hair and thinks of at least forty reasons why he should. 

“Hand over the keys. My turn to drive.”

*

“‘Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?’” Cas asks twenty minutes or so later, as they're driving over a bridge through a river gorge. 

“Wow, this quiz thing sure isn’t pulling any punches, huh.”

“It’s intended to provoke revealing disclosures of intimate personal information, so small talk would be counter-purposeful. How do you think you will die, Dean?”

“You mean, the big one? No take-backs?”

Cas nods. 

“If you’d asked me that at any point in the last fifteen years, you know what I’d have said.”

“Blaze of glory, correct?” Cas says, sadly. 

“Right. But now, I’m not sure.”

“As someone deeply invested in your continued well-being, I’m very glad to hear that. You deserve peace, up to and including the end.”

Dean laughs. “What, you want me to retire? The two of us can get a cabin in Wisconsin, do some fishing...” 

He trails off, realizing what he just said with dawning horror. 

“I’d like that, very much,” Cas says, before Dean has a chance to wind himself up into a full-blown panic. “I’ve never fished before.”

“That’s just wrong, man. On the list of benefits to being human - mostly human, whatever - it’s right there after sex.”

“I see. So like sex, the best fishing happens with someone you love.”

“What? Who told you that? Sex is sex, it's pretty much always great.”

“Ah." Cas shakes his head, and Dean gets the surreal impression that he's being pitied. "I’ve been around a long time, if you recall. Observed a great deal of humans’ sexual nature, both the mundane and the profound.”

“‘Observed,’ huh. Kinky.”

“Not intentionally. When an angel is tasked with protecting a human, it is inevitable that certain commonplace elements of their existence will be on display. I didn’t - it wasn’t like I...at the time, it held no personal appeal.”

A record skips in Dean’s mind. _At the time at the time at the time._

“That’s beside the point though,” Cas says. “What I meant to say was that I would like to fish. With you.”

Dean swallows and tries not to connect the dots. 

“But back to the question,” Cas says. 

“Right. So, a normal death, at a normal age. Something that doesn’t involve my guts getting spewed on the cement.”

Cas nods, satisfied. “You deserve that. It’s the least this universe can do.”

“What about you?”

“Well, at this body’s current rate of cellular decay, I would expect my natural death to occur in approximately fifty four years.”

Dean shudders. “You can _feel_ the aging of your cells?”

“I can feel many things now, Dean. Fortunately, most of them are far more pleasant.”

Dean is not going to ask a follow-up question. He’s not, definitely not. The terrain ahead is full of landmines. But then he hears words come unbidden out of his own mouth. 

“Like what?”

Cas doesn’t answer. He stares instead. Dean tries to keep his eyes on the road even as the weight of Cas’ eyes on him makes his dick get dumb ideas. When Dean doesn’t press the issue, Cas lets out a quiet, dissatisfied sigh. 

“Moving on, then. Are you hungry? We’re thirty miles out from St. Louis.”

“Yeah, I could eat.” Dean racks his brain. Given that he’s criss-crossed this country a thousand times over, it takes a minute to call up the right stretch of highway in his mental rolodex of roadside grub. “You up for barbecue? There’s this place outside town, best ribs in the state.”

“That sounds great.”

*

Dean doesn’t stop thinking about what _pleasant_ things Cas can feel all the way through their meal. Eating ribs is not attractive. That’s an unmovable law of the universe. And yet, as Dean watches Cas suck sauce off his index finger before taking a long pull from his beer bottle...

Shit.

“Are you alright?” Cas asks. “You’ve barely touched your food. I shouldn’t need to tell you that behavior is entirely out of character.”

“Oh, uh.” Dean takes an oversized bite of a cornbread muffin as a diversion. 

“I wasn’t trying to rush you. Take your time. It might be disruptive to the other patrons if I have to give you CPR in the middle of the restaurant.”

Dean nearly chokes on his food at the mental image of Cas’ mouth on his, even fucking dying for lack of air. He swallows quickly and then gulps his beer. 

“You really are acting strangely, Dean. Is it the questionnaire? We can stop. I would never intend to cause you actual discomfort. If this is beyond your vulnerability tolerance level, I apologize.”

“Nah, that’s...not it,” Dean hedges. “Let’s do another question.”

“Alright. Let’s see.” Cas carefully cleans his fingers with the wet wipes thoughtfully included with their trough of assorted meats and sides before pulling out his phone. “Would you like me to answer first, to give you a chance to eat? The food really is fantastic, Dean. I especially recommend the ‘Eat My Ash’ sauce. The smokiness really compliments the -”

Dean tunes out, brain gone all hot static at a stupid barbecue sauce pun. He’s fuckin’ doomed.

*


	3. Chapter 3

"'Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common,' Cas reads aloud as he pushes his half-eaten plate of pawpaw pie across the table toward Dean. “Besides a willingness to sacrifice for one another, obviously.”

“Thank _fuck_ for your martyr complex,” Dean groans, pulling the pie close and earning a chuckle from Cas. “But this is an easy one.” 

Dean ticks the reasons off on his fingers. 

“Number one, daddy issues, obviously. Ain’t no use denying. Number two -” Dean waves a hand vaguely at their refined environs. “An appreciation for the finer things. Number three, like you said. Ride or die. Pie or die. Whatever. You get it. I’m gonna eat now.”

When the waitress had stopped by to ask what they’d like for dessert, Dean had agonized over his choice. He’d gone with the pecan, but Cas’ slice has been mocking him for the last ten minutes. 

“Please enjoy your sensual encounter with a pastry while I answer at more length,” Cas says, mocking and fond.

Dean nods gratefully, mouth full. 

“I sometimes marvel at the number of things we have in common. A constellation of similarities that may well have saved the world. More than once.”

“What do ya mean?” Dean mumbles around a bite of filling and perfect crust. 

“I was drawn to you immediately, as you already know.” Not put that bluntly, he didn’t. Jesus. “Something in your nature seemed akin to mine. As alien as we were to one another at first, it allowed me to empathize, to take your side. And that changed everything.”

Dean thinks back to those early days, Cas helping them - helping _him_ \- even when doing so got his ass handed to him by heaven’s internal affairs division.

“So it wasn’t just the power of my winning personality?” Dean quips, mouth still full. 

“Surprisingly, your natural charisma wasn’t the first thing I noticed when you stabbed me in the heart.”

Dean laughs, thumping his chest a couple times to clear his airway of errant pie. 

“Then what was it?” he asks when he can breathe again, genuinely curious. Possibly also fishing for a compliment, but Cas doesn’t need to know that. 

Cas sips his coffee, eyes roving over Dean’s face. 

“Actually, the stabbing did have something to do with it. Your willingness to fight, even with the odds stacked so highly against you. You didn’t know what I was, and I could have killed you in the blink of an eye, and yet, you tried. I find that same reckless determination within myself.”

“We always were ready to go down swingin’,” Dean says, chagrined. Maybe a little too ready. 

“Then, there was your sense of loyalty,” Cas continues. “And your desire to believe against all odds that the people in your life were worthy of it. Sam, your father. Me. Even when we were most acutely undeserving.”

Dean lets out a slow breath. 

“Finally, your totally unmerited belief in the possibility of change. I think that was the most fundamental thing. Take myself, for instance. The angel you met in that barn...Dean, I threatened to _throw you back into hell_. And yet, less than a year later, I was attempting to thwart the sacred plan for humanity all because you believed I could.”

“I’m, uh, sorry about that?” Dean says, which is at least 40% true.

Cas smiles. “Don’t be. Like I said, we have this in common. Look at Jack.”

Dean opens his mouth to argue, to point out the obvious differences, but then...hm.

“Two beings of supernatural origin attempting to overcome their pre-ordained purpose and create a meaningful existence built upon helping others.”

“...Oh. Yeah, okay. Point taken.” 

The waitress plops the check down on their table, its plastic tray rattling on the formica. Without so much as glancing at the total, Cas fishes his wallet out of his pocket and sets more than a few twenties on top of the tray. Dean's pretty sure that equates to at least a 200% tip - Cas’ usual, stupidly attractive modus operandi. 

Dean shovels up every last morsel of pie into his mouth and follows Cas out the door. 

*

“‘For what in your life do you feel most grateful?’” Dean asks, his turn to play interviewer from the passenger seat as Cas steers them up I-55 through Illinois. 

“The crack in my chassis,” Cas answers after a beat. He flips the windshield wipers on, clearing off the haze of drizzle that started falling somewhere near Springfield. 

“What?”

“It’s something Naomi said to me once. That I, what was it... ‘came off the line with a crack in my chassis.’” 

“And...that’s...um...” Dean tries not to get reactive, instead taking a moment to cast around for the right words. “Explain to me how that’s a good thing. Because I can sure think of some other options. What about burgers, the bunker’s water pressure, livin’ to fight another day -” 

_Me_ , Dean thinks but doesn’t say.

“What I’m grateful for isn’t that she said it, Dean. I’m grateful that it’s true _._ Without that defect in the assembly of my angelic nature, I wouldn’t be here with you now. And everything - _everything_ \- stems from that.”

“But you’re not defective, Cas,” Dean blurts out, and there goes any attempt to keep it cool.

“I appreciate the sentiment. However, from a purely technical standpoint, I am. Angels were designed to be unthinkingly obedient emissaries of God’s intentions. And instead, I’m...well.” 

Dean pulls a face, unconvinced. Cas goes on. 

“Consider for a moment. If the Impala was like other 1967 Impalas in every way, except that it occasionally spewed rainbows from its tailpipe instead of exhaust. While that would be delightful -”

“Would it?” Dean counters, earning an eye roll in response. 

“It would still be a deviation from the vehicle’s manufacturing standards. One that would merit correction, unless by fortunate happenstance the factory’s quality control personnel failed to notice.”

“And you’re the rainbow-farting muscle car, in this scenario.”

Cas’ mouth quirks, hands flexing on the steering wheel. Dean doesn’t _not_ notice the way his forearms look, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow. “Exactly.”

Dean shakes his head, but decides to let it go. Cas turns the question back on him, and Dean gives the only answer he can. Sam. 

*

They decide to stop for the night when the Chicago rush hour traffic gets unbearable. Baby wasn’t made for bumper to bumper on an eight lane freeway. Not to mention, Dean wants to find out if a bar he went to back before the first apocalypse is still there. 

Over wings and a couple local beers that Dean would scoff at for being pretentious if they weren’t so damn good, they get back to the list. 

“‘If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?’” Cas asks before popping a fried pickle into his mouth. 

“Uh.” Dean takes a long pull of his beer. Where to fucking begin. “Alright, and we’re setting aside all the obvious butterfly effect shit?”

“I would never bring Ashton Kutcher into this, Dean.”

Dean laughs, almost spilling his beer. 

“I don’t know, man. A lot of shit happened when I was growing up that your average shrink would probably say wasn’t ideal. Kids probably aren’t supposed to see that much death before the age of twelve.”

“No disrespect intended, but even ignoring the interference of the unholy and the demonic, your average mental health professional would have more than a few questions about John’s parenting.”

“Go easy,” Dean says, lifting up a hand in surrender. “I know.”

“Would you have done it differently, if you had been in his place?” Cas asks. And, huh. 

“I want to think I would have done better. I tried to, I guess, during that year with Ben and Lisa. Tried to be what my dad wasn’t. Just sticking around, for starters. Being patient. Protective. Did I ever tell you about that time Dad used me as bait for a kelpie out at Lake Tahoe?”

Cas lets out a long-suffering sigh, letting his head fall back. His neck is on display in a long line and Dean misses a breath or two until he shakes his head to clear out all the stupid, lusty cobwebs. 

“Anyway. He wasn’t father of the year, I get that. But he made me who I am, so I don’t know if I would change anything. Kelpie bait and all.”

“And your fortuitous resilience in the face of unending personal trauma justifies your father’s negligence?” Cas says, grip tight around his glass. 

“No. Wait, what? Well, I mean, kinda. I don’t know. Lives got saved because of what my dad taught me, what he put me through. Hard to argue with that.”

Cas’ shoulders sag, the fight gone out of him. “Being treated with dignity and kindness wouldn’t have diminished your abilities, Dean. I wish I could make you see that.”

“Well, what about you?” Dean asks, trying to change the subject as he feels heat and something like shame crawl up his neck. “I know you weren’t raised, exactly, but still - what would you change about whatever counts for an angelic childhood?”

Cas draws a finger through the condensation that’s formed on the side of his glass. 

“Angels come into existence fully formed,” Cas says thoughtfully. “Ready to fulfill their spiritual purpose in heaven or on earth. But there is a short period of time - roughly ten thousand years - when you might say an angel operates with training wheels. Every new angel is assigned a mentor. Someone older in the garrison, who can model ideal angelic behavior. Gabriel was mine.”

“Oh, that explains it all then.”

Cas throws him a look, the corner of his mouth lifting. “He was far more pious, in those days. More endless songs of worship to our father, fewer adult film actresses.”

Dean shakes his head. He can’t picture it. Something about Gabriel without that spark of utter chaos and hedonism in his eyes feels wrong. Cas signals to the bartender for a refill, who slides a second bottle across the bar to each of them. 

“So as for what I’d change... I suppose it would be to add critical thinking to the arsenal of requisite angelic skills, rather than obedience. Considering our father’s absence, the course of history would have benefited from the most powerful beings in existence acting as something other than mindless soldiers.”

Dean taps his bottle against Cas’, thinking of every angel that’s fucked with his people just for the sake of following orders. “Can’t argue with that.”

They both drink, and after a quiet moment, Dean gets up to head to the bathroom. 

When he returns, he sees that someone has taken up the stool on Cas’ other side at the bar. Dean hangs back for a moment, and watches Cas smile at something the stranger said, small and private. Even from here, Dean can see the guy isn’t a chore to look at. Damnit. 

Dean takes in the guy’s posture, elbow propped against the bartop, head resting on his hand. His knees are turned toward Cas, and he’s leaning in. Just like Dean would do if he was chatting up someone in any number of watering holes exactly like this across middle America. That shit _works_ , and worse yet, it looks like it’s working on Cas. 

The dude has the nerve to give Cas’ shoulder a slow squeeze when he gets up from his seat, and Cas’ eyes follow him as he returns to his friends around the pool table. Dean waits until the guy is out of eyeshot before sliding back onto his own stool. 

"You could, you know," Dean says quietly, hoping he doesn't have to spell it out. This is as much generosity as he can muster.

"Could I." Cas says it like a statement, rather than a question, eyebrow arched. He must’ve felt Dean watching. 

"If that was something you ever - I don't want to get in your way."

"Don't you?"

The thing is, of course he does. He wants to get in the way real, real bad. But Cas isn’t supposed to be able to tell.

“What?” Dean is quickly being outmaneuvered. Of course, Cas’ version of what feels suspiciously like flirting would be a verbal sparring match. “I mean, I wouldn’t stop you. Obviously. Every man, angel, whatever for himself, I guess.”

“You think I should take that man up on his offer of going back to his apartment, presumably to engage in sexual activity?”

“It’s up to you,” Dean says with a vague hand gesture he hopes conveys how deeply he is definitely not invested in Cas’ decision. “Are you - are you into him?”

“Definition, please.”

“Come on, dude. You’re gonna make me...? Do you want to. You know. With him.”

“Mm. I see. Are you asking if I find him attractive?” Cas asks, voice low and making Dean shift in his seat to hide how that pitch makes his traitorous dick react.

Dean nods. 

“He has symmetrical features, and kind eyes,” Cas says. “He didn’t say anything offensive during our admittedly brief interaction.”

“Wow, a ringing endorsement,” Dean says, aiming for sarcasm and ending up in the dangerous realm of obvious relief. “Sounds like you two could have something special.”

“He was very clear that this would be a one-time thing. He’s traveling for business, apparently.”

“Isn’t a one-time thing just about all that’s on the table? Unless you’re planning on trading in your Continental for a bus pass and relocating to the Windy City.”

“I’m not sure I’m interested in a one-time thing, Dean,” Cas says, looking directly into his eyes. “Actually, I’m quite sure that I’m interested in something quite the opposite.”

Dean swallows reflexively and taps a coaster against the bar. 

“What are you - nevermind.” _Danger, danger, danger. Red Alert._

“You’re not curious?” Cas asks, head tilted. 

“I’m - I just. Figured. We’ve been doing a lot of sharing and caring these days. So. If you wanted to, uh, talk about it. That would be okay.”

“You want me to talk about my sexual interests and objectives, such as they are?”

Dean is in way, way over his head here. He’s free diving without supplemental oxygen, and the challenge in Cas’ expression tells him he’s not getting out of this easily.

“Whatever you want, buddy.”

“Alright. I have experienced sexual attraction before. On more than one occasion.”

Dean nods, going for casual, like he doesn’t have an intense, vested interest in this information. 

“You got a type, then?” Dean asks, before gulping the last of his beer and wishing he could normal for fucking _once._

When he looks up, he catches the hint of a smile at the corner of Cas’ mouth. 

“I suppose I do. But that information is personal.”

“Huh. Alright.”

Dean wants to press, to needle at him until he gets a begrudging answer out of Cas about how he obviously prefers stacked blondes in red lipstick and combat boots so that he can be sure, finally, that he stands no goddamn chance. But he doesn’t.

“Dean.”

This is it. This is when Cas is gonna say he knows about Dean’s stupid crush. He’s gonna get let down easy, it’s gonna hurt like hell- 

“Tell me your life story,” Cas says instead.

“What?”

“That’s the next question. You have four minutes. And you are to use as much detail as possible.”


	4. Chapter 4

“Here? You want me to - here?” Dean looks over his shoulder, like anyone in here gives a damn. They’re all drinking and flirting and shooting pool and otherwise uninterested in any of Dean’s shit. 

Cas lifts his shoulders in a shrug. “Unless you would rather take this somewhere more private.”

Dean knows that isn’t a come-on. It isn’t. Just a completely innocent, honest turn of phrase that means exactly what it sounds like. Except that isn’t any better, because _private_ means a dimly lit motel room, he and Cas sitting across from each other at an undersized dinette, spilling all their secrets. 

“Nah, I’m just gonna get something a little stronger to drink first,” Dean says, tipping back the last of his beer. 

When he looks back at Cas, Cas quickly glances away and clears his throat, like he’s been caught. Wishful thinking.

Dean orders up a couple whiskey doubles, neat. Mid-shelf stuff, he can’t handle that bottom of the barrel shit anymore since he hit 40. Cas sips his slowly, with a low hum. 

“This is much better than that bottle you used to keep in the breadbox back at the bunker.”

“Well, ever since you got me that sourdough starter, I had to have somewhere to, ya know. Actually keep the bread.”

“An improvement, by all measures. You are an excellent baker, Dean.”

Dean preens, because of course he does. His bread is fuckin' great. Last week, he made a seeded semolina that nearly brought Sam to tears. Or maybe it was Jack. Somebody almost cried, and it wasn’t just him. 

“So, your life story,” Cas prompts. 

“My turn first?” 

“I’m currently filtering my own narrative down to meet the time requirement, and I need approximately 384 seconds for that process to complete in the background of my subconscious.”

“And you can still listen, while that’s happening?”

“I always give you my full attention, Dean. You’re rather captivating.”

“Jesus, Cas,” Dean sputters. The whiskey must be hitting him harder than he thought. 

“I simply mean in the technical sense of the word,” Cas says casually, like this is an empirical assessment rather than a compliment. “Surely you’ve noticed your effect on people.”

“Uh, I mean.” Dean scratches at the back of his neck. “I’m pretty reliable with the ladies.”

“And with members of small town law enforcement, fairies, sprites, demons, angels, assorted monsters and lesser deities. Not to mention, a sizable percentage of human men.”

Dean ignores the last bit for his own sanity. “Shit, deities? You’re telling me some goddess out there has been into me?”

“The point I’m trying to make isn’t related to your sex appeal. Although I suppose that is a part of it. But we’re getting off-course. Your life story, if you will.”

“You know it already though. Won’t it be boring?” 

“Hearing which elements of your history are most relevant to you is inherently interesting. I may be familiar with most of the discrete events of your life, but not how you yourself think of them.”

“It’s, uh. I mean, overall, it’s a sack of sad shit, you know?” Dean swirls the whiskey in the bottom of his glass, marveling at the tiny, golden, tornado it makes.

“Surely there were good moments too. I’ve been party to some of them,” Cas says, nudging him with his shoulder. 

The alcohol answers for him, more honest than he’d otherwise willingly be. 

“You’ve made most of the good ones possible, man.”

“That’s very kind.”

“It’s just the truth.” Dean says, and drains his glass. “So yeah, years of pain and grief and fear, but also some really fucking good people. And an angel. And a nephilim. See, I didn’t even need four minutes.” 

“So you define your life most essentially by your relationships,” Cas says with a serious nod, like Dean’s answer was something profound.

“Sounds cheesy."

Cas drinks the last of his whiskey. “On the contrary.”

“...Well, yeah. I guess I do. What about you?” Dean says, turning the question around. “You finished condensing millenia into a few minutes?”

“Mm. Nearly.” Cas pulls the tabletop menu toward him, peering at the cocktail options. “I think a sazerac would help.”

He orders one, and Dean asks for a re-up on his whiskey. It’s lucky that the motel is next door; he’s pretty sure he’s well on his way to toasted. By the subtle tinge of pink to Cas’ cheeks, he knows he’s not alone. 

“So we’re bringing absinthe into this?” Dean says with a raised eyebrow. 

“It’s only a swirl, to flavor the glass. No green fairies will lead us astray.”

The bartender sets the drink down in front of Cas, complete with a very classy lemon twist. 

“The main arc of my story begins with a primordial fish attempting to crawl up a beach.”

*

Another set of drinks later, Dean’s shoulder is brushing against Cas’ on every exhale and their knees are bumping up against each other’s under the bartop. It’s all intentional, at least from Dean’s half-drunk side. 

Sometime in the course of the last hour, the bar has filled up. It provides Dean the perfect cover of plausible deniability to justify speaking directly against Cas’ ear. 

“So you were saying something about math in the Middle East?” 

Cas hums in response, and they’re sitting so close Dean can feel it. 

“The Golden Age of Islam. While your ancestronies - excuse me, _ancestors_ \- were busy getting invaded in the British Isles,” Cas cuts himself off with a barely detectable hiccup. “I was watching the algebra.”

“‘Watching the algebra,’ huh,” Dean parrots back, leaning heavily on his elbow, propped up on the bar. “Sounds fascinating.”

“I mean - the numbers and the letters and the sheer _beauty_ of it, Dean. You have no idea how sensual it can - never mind.” 

“No, _definitely_ tell me all about sexy math.”

Cas huffs.

“You’re very distracting, just like algebra. Has anyone ever told you that?”

Dean bites back a laugh, desperate not to cut off Cas’ stream of consciousness blathering.

“No, I haven’t heard that one before.”

“Something about the symmetry...” Cas shakes himself, looking like he’s trying to power through the whiskey fog back to the land of coherence.

“So anyway, like I was saying, Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was a gifted polymath. His lyrical descriptions of polynomial equations...”

Dean waits for the rest, but after Cas’ gaze shifts from the vague middle distance of memory to somewhere in the vicinity of Dean’s chest, he clears his throat. 

“What about them? The polygonal, whatever.”

“Hm? Oh, polynomial equations. You’re familiar with them, of course.”

Dean fidgets on his stool. “I mean, you know me and school weren’t on the best of terms, I might’ve missed out on...that.”

“I could teach you,” Cas says, and it sounds like a come-on when his voice is all liquor-deep and stupidly hot. “I could teach you the quadratic formula, root-finding, imaginary numbers...”

“You could teach me a lot of things,” Dean replies without thinking. This is getting fucking treacherous.

Cas licks his lips, eyes roving over Dean’s face. “And you, me.”

Dean swallows, nervous and turned on and impossibly, stupidly hopeful. “You wanna...”

Cas nods. 

“You don’t know what I was gonna say.”

“I’m feeling agreeable,” Cas shrugs, corner of his mouth lifting in a grin. 

“You wanna head over to the motel?”

Cas’ smile widens, but when he goes to stand up, he veers heavily to the side and nearly hits the deck. 

“Jesus, Cas - you alright, there?” Dean asks, pulling him steady with an arm around his waist. He uses his other hand to check for non-existent damage to Cas’ shoulders.

Meanwhile, Cas’ palm has found its way to the center of Dean’s chest, and Dean is suddenly very, very aware that they’re in the middle of a crowded bar after midnight. Somebody might get the wrong idea. Or the right one, at least in Dean’s case.

“I may have underestimated the absinthe,” Cas grumbles. 

**

The motel room has one bed, because of course it does. The guy at the check-in desk must’ve taken one look at Cas half-draped around Dean and made an understandable judgement call. Dean pours Cas into the room, propping him up against the wall as he double locks the door. 

Cas shrugs out of his coat and toes off his shoes with a human casualness that shouldn’t make Dean ache, but does. He starfishes back onto the bed, eyes closing. 

Dean drops onto the end of the mattress, nudging Cas’ foot with his hip. 

“Nuh-uh. Nope. Buddy, you gotta leave room for me. I told you before - I’m too old for the floor. And you can’t sleep in a tie, that’s just science.”

“Dean,” Cas groans at the ceiling, arching his back in a sinuous stretch and killing off at least a couple thousand of Dean’s remaining brain cells.

“Here, sit up. I’ll help you with it.” What is he doing, he shouldn’t be doing that, the hands-by-the-neck thing. It’s risky, is what it is, and who knows what might -

“Thank you, yes,” Cas says, sitting up and leaning forward right into Dean’s space. 

God, those eyes. 

Dean’s hands are uncooperative and slow as he attempts to slide the knot loose. It doesn’t help at all that Cas’s fingers have wandered across the blanket and are now drawing patterns on Dean’s knee. 

“What are you -” Dean’s hand stills on the tie, the knot only half undone. “Is that Enochian?”

“Sanskrit. A minor blessing.” Cas traces a spiraling series out with his index finger. “Nothing to be alarmed about.”

Dean slides the long end out of the knot, then helps the rest unravel before tugging the whole thing through Cas’ collar until it slips out into his hand. 

“You got it from here?” Dean asks, throaty and dark. So fucking obvious. His stupid voice would be a dead giveaway if Cas were anyone else. But of course, Cas just nods like helping your buddy undress and then sharing a bed is all totally above-board. 

Cas’ fingers move to the buttons of his shirt, and Dean looks away, leaning down to untie his own boots. He hears the clink of Cas’ belt dropping to the floor, and the swish of the cheap comforter being pulled back as Cas gets in. Only when he thinks it’s safe does Dean look up again, to see Cas eyeing him from where he’s sprawled out against the pillows. 

“‘If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?’” Cas says, apropos of nothing, before Dean realizes it’s another question from the list. Of course Cas has it memorized verbatim. 

“I don’t know, Cas. To fly, I guess,” Dean says, turning around to shuck off his top layers before he carefully lies down next to Cas, on top of the blankets. He’s just sober enough to leave a solid, sanity-preserving six inches between their bodies. 

Rolling to his side (closer) and looking Dean right in the eye, Cas says, “I’d say the experience is overrated, but that would be a lie.” 

Dean laughs, and throws an arm over his tired eyes. “Figures. What about you? Cross flying off the list. Phenomenal cosmic power and all that, anything you still wanna do?” 

“Just one thing left, I think,” Cas says, quieter than before, eyes scanning over Dean’s face. 

Dean peers at him from under his elbow. 

“It’s late though, and I am mildly inebriated. Tomorrow, perhaps?” Cas quirks a one-sided smile at him, but there’s a sadness to it that Dean can’t begin to guess at. 

“Sure, man,” Dean says with a yawn, shutting his eyes. “G’night, then.”

Dean shifts down a bit, and feels his spine creak against the cheap bed. Definitely not memory foam. 

“Are you really going to insist on a false premise that you are comfortable sleeping atop the blankets?”

Dean rolls over to face him. “Huh?”

“You’re not sleeping up there. It’s wrong. Get under the blankets, Dean. They’re marginally clean.”

“Not loving the use of ‘marginally.’”

“I don’t think you want more details,” Cas says, tugging on the covers currently wedged under Dean’s back. “Or do you want me to list the human fluids, pathogens, and substances that have made the acquaintance of the coverlet?”

“Fiiiine,” Dean says, inelegantly scooting beneath the blankets, where he can immediately feel Cas’ body heat. Fantastic. Not a problem, not in the least. 

He turns away from Cas, hugging the edge of the bed in self-preservation. Cas sighs. 

“You’re ridiculous,” Cas says, and then there’s a hand on Dean’s side, tugging him close until his ass is pressed to Cas’ crotch, Cas arm snug around him like this is a thing they do. 

“What the -”

“Go to sleep,” Cas instructs, yawning against the back of his neck. “In the morning, I’ll answer your question. I’ll even give you a hint. You’re part of the answer.”

Dean’s eyes fly open. He lies awake, wondering, until the rhythmic rise and fall of Cas’ chest against his back pulls him under.


	5. Chapter 5

Dean wakes up alone, one palm flat in the center of the bed as though he’d reached for Cas at some point in the night. He scrubs at his eyes and looks up to see that Cas is perched at the kitchenette with a newspaper and a cup of coffee, fully dressed and looking like a stock photo of mid-century domesticity. Except for the bedhead and the sawed-off on his right. 

“How long you been up?” Dean asks, squinting at the clock. 5:48 AM, a solid four hours. 

“Mm. A while,” Cas says, folding the newspaper. “Were you aware that you occasionally talk in your sleep?”

Dean’s stomach drops out. 

“Nothing incriminating. Something about crab cakes in Cape Cod. You weren’t especially articulate.”

Something like relief and disappointment churns in his gut, zapping the quick flood of adrenaline. He imagines how it would feel to have the decision taken entirely out of his hands. His subconscious spilling the beans on all the stupid, sappy shit that rolls around his head. A humiliating miracle. 

“Are you hungry?” Cas asks. “According to Yelp, there’s a place up the road that serves stuffed waffles.”

“Sounds good,” Dean says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. “Do they have bacon?”

*

“So you said you’d tell me in the morning,” Dean says after his third cup of coffee and two-thirds through the house special, a nutella Belgian waffle topped with strawberries and a delightfully obscene amount of whipped cream. Sam would have had a stroke on principle.

But Sam’s not here, which is why Dean can circle back to last night’s half-finished conversation.

“That thing you were gonna tell me last night? The quality or ability or whatever that you wish you had?”

“Oh.” Cas pokes at a last bit of sausage with his fork, chasing it through a trail of maple syrup on his plate. “I sometimes wish I could still - well, maybe this answer isn’t in the spirit of the question. It’s an ability I used to have, not a new one to me altogether.”

“Think we’re playing pretty fast and loose with the rules as it is,” Dean says, nudging his foot against Cas’ under the table. 

“Alright then. Telepathy. I occasionally miss the ability to read minds. It had a way of smoothing over complicated social interactions.”

Dean nearly chokes on a strawberry. “You used to be smooth? When was that?”

Cas just rolls his eyes and sips his Earl Grey. 

“Wait though, you said your answer had something to do with me,” Dean says before his mouth filter has finished receiving a giant, blaring RED ALERT from his brain. “But uh,” he backpedals, “You were pretty out of it, maybe that’s not what you meant.”

“That is exactly what I meant.”

Dean nods, nods some more. A normal amount of nodding. He shouldn’t ask a follow-up question, he shouldn’t - “What do I have to do with telepathy?”

“I used to read your mind, back when we first met,” Cas says, looking him right in the eyes like he still can. “It was deemed necessary, for the success of Heaven’s mission, that I knew you down to your most basic impulses.”

Dean shudders.

“‘Basic impulses,’ shit, Cas, I’m sorry. That can’t have been, uh, flattering for me.” He thinks of gas station porn mags, his own personal spank bank of hookup memories, 2:00 AM cravings for the worst burger and fries to be found on this side of I-80.

“Yours were nothing unusual, for the most part. You forget, I’ve existed a long time. A very human desire for touch and affection wasn’t surprising. But that’s not all I found there.”

“Shit.” Dean regrets the second waffle, as he imagines the worst of the shit Cas no-doubt saw, especially fresh off Allistair’s rack as he was back then.

“I used to walk through your mind, memories parting like overgrown grass as I picked out each hurt, old and new.”

“Fantastic.” His mind, an empty lot full of broken glass and old tires. 

“But still, I didn’t understand you. I do, now.”

“So why do you want the telepathy back, if you know me so well?” 

Cas sets down his fork, places his hands in his lap. “What do you think of me, Dean?”

“Huh?”

“That’s what I’d want to know. The depth and breadth of it, the shape of your opinion of me.”

“Cas.” The setting seems insane, fluorescent lighting and the smell of bacon and Cas wanting to know what Dean thinks of him. “You’re my best friend,” Dean offers, but that’s not all of it, not by a long shot.

Cas just smiles, and it’s tired, familiar. 

“You know what that means though, right? I ain’t got a lot of friends, man.” Not a whole lot of living ones, anyway, and none as good as Cas.

Cas nods. 

“I trust you, okay? With anything. That’s what I think of you.”

*

“Alright, two hours out. Hit me with another question,” Dean says, popping a Creedence tape into the deck and turning it down low as he avoids every toll road on the way out of Chicago. 

“‘If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?’” Cas asks. 

Dean casts around in his mind for a moment before the answer floats to the surface. 

“Uh, there is something I always wondered. You might know the answer, actually. Heavenly plans, and all that. What would I have been like, if Mom hadn’t died and Dad hadn’t gone crazy? If Sam wasn’t earmarked for Lucifer. Would I have been just some normal guy?”

“There’s nothing ordinary about a good man,” Cas says plainly. “But take away the lineage of vessels, Azazel’s machinations, Chuck’s grand story -”

“Fuck that guy,” Dean can’t help but interrupt. Cas nods his agreement. 

“I did actually check, once. Out of curiosity. A neighboring dimension, one where you were still born in Kansas to Mary and John. No matter the universe, they were poorly suited for one another. In this particular iteration, they divorced when you were six. You spent most of your childhood with your mother and your brother, and the occasional weekend with your father. You had friends, did well in school -”

“What?” Dean cuts in. “Hey, I guess I buy that except for the school thing...”

“Intelligence isn’t some zero-sum game between siblings,” Cas says, exasperated. “You and Sam are both exceptionally bright. It’s not your fault that you attended fourteen different schools in a three year period. I can show you the literature on the statistically undeniable impact of school instability on a child’s -”

“...That’s alright. Anyway.”

“You went on to college, settled down with someone who loved you. No devil’s traps under the rug, no salt on the windowsills. You were good, and happy, and cared for. As it always should have been.”

Dean swallows thickly, clears his throat. He has a million more questions he wants to ask, but it feels wrong, somehow. In that dimension, he didn’t know Cas. Or Bobby, Jody, Donna, Claire, Jack, and so many others. It feels disloyal, somehow, to look too deeply into what might have been. 

“Thanks. For telling me. So, what about you?”

“I’ve always wanted to know if there was anything I could do personally to preserve the fate of the honey bee. All the pollinators, really, but especially the honey bee,” Cas says, reverence in his voice. 

“You remember that time -” _naked, on my car, covered in bees._

“Ah, yes. My expressions of friendship were a little off-kilter then. The intent was affectionate, I can assure you.”

“Took fucking _forever_ to get all the honey off,” Dean parries back, but there’s no heat in it.

Dean flips on the turn signal to avoid a stalled pickup truck in the middle lane. Poor bastard. 8:00 AM on a Sunday and the traffic is still god-awful. 

“So, next question,” Cas says. ‘Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?’”

A technicolor kaleidoscope of ideas fans out in Dean’s mind, each sappier than the last: kissing Cas in the rain, in the Impala, after a hunt, first thing in the morning. He shakes it off, looks for something else a little less...any of that.

“Oh, I know. I want to learn to surf,” Dean says, impressed with himself for picking the least problematic option. 

“You’d be good at it,” Cas says decisively.

“How do you know?”

“Because I’d teach you.”

“You can _surf_?”

Cas just nods, all serene, like of course, obviously he knows how to surf. Trying to picture it, Dean laughs, until he doesn't - the prospect of Cas in board shorts has some serious merit. 

“Okay, so that’s the dream. You, me, Sam, and Jack. Some hippy in a beach hut renting us boards. California, Hawaii, I don’t care.”

“Portugal.”

“Sure, Portugal,” Dean says with a shrug. 

“The bifanas and pastéis de nata alone are worth the trip.” Like always, something Pavlovian triggers in Dean’s idiot brain when Cas speaks another language. It’s not fair, how good he sounds. “That, and the waves in Nazaré are among the most thrilling on earth, albeit dangerous. Of course, I’d protect you."

"Alright, you're a badass, I got it,” Dean says. He pictures some mashup of Baywatch and Blue Crush, with Cas standing in for Pamela Anderson and Kate Bosworth. “So your turn. Something you've dreamed of doing. Go."

Cas’ knee bounces, a rare display of what looks like nerves. 

“I’ve never. Um. There are certain social-sexual rituals I’ve never engaged in that I would like to try. I think.”

Dean makes a hard correction with the steering wheel just before he hits the rumble strip. _Pull it together_.

“Okay, alright. Like, some mystery cult, Dionysus shit? I can see where that could be, uh. Cool.” Understatement of the millennium. Dreams, indeed.

Cas huffs, fidgets with a button on his coat. 

“What I had in mind was significantly more mundane. No hidden temples, sacred oils, or group sex, I’m afraid. I don’t want to bore you.”

Dean nearly chokes. “You don’t have to tell me, but in the least weird way possible...I’m curious.”

“Simple things, like, well, have you ever had a massage?” 

“I’m assuming you don’t mean Magic Fingers or the massage chairs at the mall.”

“No.”

“No. Wait, once. Lisa, um. I’d had a fall at work - really torqued my back. She, I guess, yeah. Gave me a massage.”

“Did you like it?”

“I mean, sure, it was nice. To have someone do that for me. It’s not really - I don’t usually... I don’t know.”

“It’s not easy to let yourself be cared for,” Cas says. “Especially when you are so proficient at caring for others.”

Dean thinks of at least eighteen examples from his shitty, violent soap opera of a past to argue the point. 

“Do not argue. Your very existence is defined by selflessness. You deserve massages, at a minimum.”

Dean is blushing. He knows he’s blushing. It’s stupid and embarrassing and when did it get so goddamn hot in this car. He fiddles with the A/C for something to do with his hands other than twist at the steering wheel. 

“Hey, if I do, so do you. How about on the way back, I rub your back. It’s not - it doesn’t have to be _sexual_ , or whatever. Just, I’ll get the kinks out.” Shouldn’t have said kinks. What is he even doing. Better keep talking. “Okay, so what else?” he asks. “What other - what’d you call it - sociological rituals do you want to do?”

“Social-sexual. And, sleeping in a bed with someone after sex. Waking up with them in the morning.”

“But,” he says, before he has the chance to pull it back, “Dude, you were married.” 

That whole situation was weird as hell. Poor Daphne. I guess that’s what happens when you pull a naked stranger out of a river and try to marry him. 

“It wasn’t like that - there were insurance issues. My powers to heal weren’t fully intact at first. Your country’s healthcare system...she had a guest room. With a very comfortable futon.”

“Oh my God, you got married for _insurance_ \- wait a second. Did you ever actually get divorced?”

“Well, no, but I have...died. Since then. So. Family law and most major religions of the world would say that takes care of that,” Cas says as he smooths out a wrinkle in the trenchcoat folded over his lap.

“So, you want a real morning after?” Dean asks. “Most of mine haven’t been, uh, the highlight of the experience.” But then he thinks of Lisa again, her head on his chest, his arm around her, touching the soft skin of her shoulder. Her making him late for work, and him not minding at all. “But sometimes. Yeah, sometimes morning’s can be pretty great. Depends on who you’re with.”

“That was my assumption,” Cas says, eyes gone soft at the edges. “So, there you have it. The most mundane of dreams. My angelic brothers and sisters would be mortified.”

“That’s how you know you’re on the right track.”

Cas smiles wryly, sunlight lighting the edges of his hair golden. 

*

The hunt doesn’t go the way he expects. It takes Cas all of six minutes of hushed conversation with the teenage clerk at a gas station that sells bait, beef pasties, and Christmas decorations year-round for him to solve the case. 

Cas directs Dean to drive them to a bend in the river, just past some baseball fields and a playground. Underneath the adjacent highway overpass, Cas wades knee-deep into the river as Dean protests loudly from the rocky shore. He crouches down low, trench coat flaring out behind him on the surface of the water, and murmurs something Dean can’t hear. 

The glossy, grey head of some kind of something rises from the water, its black eyes at Cas’ level. Cas holds a hand palm out behind him, signaling Dean to stop whatever dumbass idea he has of splashing in after him. Just in time - Dean had already pulled back the safety on his gun. Dean watches gobsmacked as Cas nods understandingly at the monster’s gesticulating, all green scales and pointed claws. 

Cas stands and starts wading back toward the shore, the monster trailing along behind him with just the oil slick skin of its back showing above the water. Dean offers Cas a hand to help him out of the water. 

He’s soaked through and shivering when he says, “It won’t happen again. Its usual diet consists entirely of Lake Michigan sturgeon hearts. It’s a simple matter of getting lost in unfamiliar terrain.” 

Dean eyes the creature, its gaze fixed unsettlingly on him from just above the water. “Cas, this thing killed two people.”

“I said, it won’t happen again. The situation is akin to a grizzly bear wandering onto a sheep farm. Tragic for the sheep, but not the bear’s fault. Provided the creature is returned to its normal habitat, no one else will come to harm. Except for the sturgeon, I suppose.”

Dean sighs, and thinks of Garth and Lenore and _Benny_. He knows better than anyone that sometimes, the monster isn’t a monster at all. 

“You’re sure.”

“I’m sure,” Cas says with a nod. 

All his instincts are saying it’s the wrong call, except for one, and it’s the one that goes deepest - trusting Cas. 

“Okay. He’s not riding in the car. How the fuck do we get him back to Lake Michigan?”

“He has agreed to ride in the trunk with the weapons.”

“No.”

“Alternatively, what is the Impala’s towing capacity?”

Dean rubs his temples, breathing slowly. 

“Nevermind,” Cas backtracks. “In that case, there is a U-Haul less than a mile away. You can drop me off there and follow behind on the way to Grand Haven.”

“You want to load this thing into a U-Haul and drive it to Lake Michigan.”

“Under cover of nightfall, obviously. I wouldn’t want to worry the coastal community members. They have nothing to fear from the misiginebig, its traditional Algonquin name.”

“And this, uh, thing,” Dean says, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the water at their backs, “Is up for a bumpy commute back home?”

“Eager for it, in fact. And grateful. It has solemnly promised to fast until we return at sunset to collect it.”

“And that’s...enough.”

“Promises are exceptionally important in aquatic reptilian culture,” Cas says. “It will be here, waiting for us.”

“Alright, well. This is a new one. Let’s get you dry, and then you wanna get something to eat?”

“Yes, Dean.”

*

“‘What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?’” Cas asks halfway through his platter of carnitas at a mom-and-pop Mexican restaurant near the park.

Dean dunks a chip in guacamole that is unreasonably good for central Michigan as he thinks about it. 

“Raising Sammy. It’s taken me a while to see that I shouldn’t have had to, but. I did. And, uh. I think I did an okay job.”

Cas sets down his fork and knife, and fixes the full force of his quiet attention on Dean. 

“I put him first,” Dean says. He might as well keep talking, though the words feel rusty, like riding a bike that’s been left in the snow all winter. “Every time. I think it kinda fucked something up in me, maybe. But it was worth it.”

“You paid a high price - the entirety of your innocence - and you and your brother saved the world as a result.”

“Aw, shucks, Cas. Now you.”

“My answer mirrors yours, coincidentally. Helping guide Jack into becoming the person he is now.”

“Talk about world-saving,” Dean says, marveling. How had he never thought of that common thread before? He pulls out his phone and scrolls down to where they left off on the list. They’ve got the whole afternoon to kill before picking up their misplaced monster this evening. “Alright, next up. ‘What do you value most in a friendship?’”

“It is a challenge to narrow it to just one thing,” Cas says, dabbing at a dot of sour cream at the corner of his mouth with a napkin. “But if I had to, I’d say mutual forgiveness. The ability to grow and move forward after shared trauma.”

Dean thinks of a prayer said in Purgatory, forgiveness and an apology wrapped together. “So, nothing to do with me, right.”

“I never said it didn’t have to do with you. It absolutely does. My relationship with you is the bar by which I would measure any other friend, which possibly does them a disservice.”

Dean laughs. “You think? How many other friends are you gonna save from hell?”

“Fair point. You are in a category all your own.”

“Thanks, man.” Dean busies himself stuffing another tortilla full of fajita fixings before he thinks _fuck it_. “You too, alright?” 

“I appreciate that. How are your fajitas?” Cas asks. 

“They're 'ucking 'antastic.”

*

“So what do you want to do with the rest of the afternoon?” Dean asks, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket as they make their way back to the car. Their shoulders are bumping together every third or fourth step because of how narrow the sidewalk is, and Dean doesn’t hate that one bit. He’d been more than a little hesitant about parallel parking Baby but dear Christ, that food had been worth it. 

“When was the last time you went for a walk?” Cas asks in reply. 

“That’s the next question? Huh.”

“No, that’s just me asking.”

“Oh. Uh, never? Like, a _recreational_ walk?”

Cas huffs a laugh. “Yes. I assume you’ve heard of the concept.”

“Maybe for parents with strollers and, I don’t know, Sam?”

“You think the act of walking for leisure and relaxation is only for other people?” Cas asks. 

It’s nice out, crisp. The dregs of August finally cashing in their chips. Dean shrugs. “If you want to go for a walk, we can go for a walk.”

“There is a nature preserve a mile east of here that is home to the endangered Eastern prairie fringed orchid. I’d like to see that, I think.”

"Let's do it."

It occurs to Dean as he parks the car in the Lamberton Lake Fen Nature Preserve that they might be on a date. An accidental one, but a date all the same. Admittedly, he hasn’t been on too many, but this still counts as one of the better ones. That’s sad, even for him.

He follows Cas to the start of a wood-chipped at the edge of the parking lot and they fall into step alongside each other. 

“‘What is your most treasured memory?’” Cas asks, and it occurs to Dean that Cas must have memorized the questions a couple hundred miles southwest at least. 

Dean thinks of setting off fireworks with Sam in that empty field when they were kids. Seeing Cas again under that streetlight when he thought he’d finally lost him for good. Charlie and Eileen. Jody, Donna, and the girls. Bobby. But those are people, not memories. 

“I don’t even know where to start,” Dean says honestly. “I’ve had a lot of highs and a lot of fucking lows.”

“‘Treasured’ is an interesting adjective. It doesn’t say ‘happiest.’”

Dean ruminates on that for a minute. It’s quiet out here. There’s the usual buzz of bugs and chirping birds, and it’s surreal not to be hunting. He’s got a thrumming under his skin that’s equal parts having Cas next to him and the bone-deep hypervigilance that comes from being in the woods without something to kill. 

“I got it. That barn. What was it - ‘09? You came in there, lightbulbs bursting, all _I gripped you tight_ and _good things do happen, Dean_. That’s the one. Everything was different, after that.”

Cas smiles wryly. “Funny.”

“Is it?”

“That’s my most treasured memory too.”

Dean grins back. Figures. 

Just in time, he sidesteps some dog shit someone left in the middle of the trail ( _asshole),_ and the move puts him so close to Cas that the backs of their hands brush. 

“The next question is less enjoyable. Your most terrible memory. Dean - I think we should skip this one.”

“Nah, we’ve done ‘em all so far, and it’s not like I don’t have things to choose from,” Dean says, kicking a rock out of the path with a bit more force than necessary. 

“That’s just it. I would not ask you to relive them. Any of them.”

“You want to protect me from what’s in my own head?”

“Is that so surprising? Back when I was still an angel, I did so frequently.”

Dean eyes him sharply. He doesn’t remember that.

“Your nightmares, that first year back from hell. I justified it to myself that we - heaven - needed you well. Needed you sharp and ready for the mission. But it was more than that. I cared - so early on, I cared - about you hurting.”

“Jesus, Cas.” What’s he supposed to say to that?

“We’re skipping the question.”

“Alright.”

“Right on time - the orchids. Just over there,” Cas says, a hand on his shoulder steering him to look northwest toward the lake. 

“Those fuzzy white ones?”

“Yes.”

“They’re - they’re kind of pretty. If they were a little bigger, they sort of look like something that might try to eat me in purgatory.”

Cas laughs. His hand stays on Dean’s shoulder longer than is necessary. Dean doesn’t mind.

"Time to go save a monster?" Dean asks after the moment stretches out past the point of plausible deniability. Just two guys looking for rare orchids on a nature walk, standing real close together.

"Yes, please."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok I feel morally compelled to admit that the Eastern Prairie Fringed Orchid blooms in late June, not September. I spent too long on the Michigan DNR's website.
> 
> And yes, the chapter count increased. I am a poor planner.


	6. Chapter 6

At the U-Haul counter, Cas uses one of his IDs to check out the truck. The Steve one, from his Gas n’ Sip days. His Steve persona hasn’t officially been wanted by the F.B.I. or legally dead more than once yet, putting him a few notches ahead of Dean on the ability-to-rent-a-vehicle front. They add on some tie-downs, furniture pads, and a dolly for good measure. Cas puts his foot down at the boxes.

“The misiginebig is a proud creature. It won’t ride in a box meant for -” Cas eyes the picture on the side skeptically, “Telescopes and golfing equipment.”

“Alright, alright. No boxes. So we good then? Ready to go?”

“There’s one other thing. While the creature can breathe out of water, its skin is not accustomed to open air. We’re going to need blankets to dampen and wrap around it. Soft ones.”

“What thread count?” Dean quips. 

“I don’t think that factors into it,” Cas says, tipping his head to the side and either missing or blatantly ignoring the sarcasm. “The mucus membrane of its skin is fragile, but dampened fleece should do just fine.”

“So we’re making a Target run, then,” Dean says.

“I believe so. It’s convenient, actually. I’m out of shampoo.”

“Huh? You can just use mine.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that. However, the one you use has sulfates _and_ parabens. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that, actually.”

*

In the hair care aisle, Cas reads the back of at least ten different bottles, popping the cap and sniffing each one, before making his decision. Dean watches him from the corner of his eye while pretending to investigate the styling gel options. Cas places his selection into the cart, and they head toward the homewares department. 

“‘If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? If so, why?’” Cas asks as they pass a shelf of Instant Pots that has Dean more than a little curious. 

“I’d cook more,” Dean says easily, slowing the cart down to eye an old-fashioned waffle iron and a cast iron skillet. “I don’t know. I really like it, I guess. It’d be a bummer to die before I perfect my chili recipe.”

“Your chili is already fantastic, as I hope you are well aware. The addition of stout beer last time was inspired.”

“Thanks, buddy,” Dean says, doing his best to accept the compliment without shrugging it off. “How about you?”

“I would take you places. Sam and Jack too. Is it true you’ve never swam in the ocean? Sam mentioned that once.”

“Yeah, uh, motel pools were more our thing, growing up. Even when we’d do a job near the coast, Dad always said he didn’t want to risk getting sand in the Impala’s upholstery.”

“Beach showers exist,” Cas says back pointedly.

“Sure, but maybe not in the 80’s, you know?”

“They definitely existed in the 80’s. The Civilian Corps actually built bathrooms at recreational beaches all across this country nearly fifty years prior to that. The work of the Corps truly combined function, the dignity of civil service, and architectural beauty. Their work is under-appreciated.”

“Alright, you’re right, Dad should’ve taken us to the beach. So with your last year on Earth, that’s what you’d want to do?”

“And the mountains. Have you ever seen a sunrise in the mountains, Dean?”

“Can’t say that I have,” Dean says, eyeballing the row of vacuums on his left. Jack brought home a Persian rug from a flea market in Kansas City a couple weeks back and set it up under the map table. They need a way to clean it properly. Something with a hose attachment too, maybe, to get the dust that settles on top of the kitchen cupboards and sets off his allergies. 

“Looks like the bedding section is just over here,” Cas calls back from the end of the row. 

Dean shakes himself, saving the vacuum decision for another time. He follows Cas around a corner. 

“So are you thinking a novelty Frozen blanket or something more neutral?” Dean jokes, taking in the dozens of options. 

“This dark green one seems appropriate,” Cas says, dropping the bundle into the cart. “I’m not sure if the misiginebig can see colors, actually, but just in case.”

Dean touches the edge of a blue blanket labeled as “OVERSIZED ULTRA MICROPLUSH” as Cas drifts over to stand beside him. 

“These really are quite soft,” Cas says. “We should get one for the bunker. Or a few. It does get drafty in the winter months.”

“Nah, it’s fine. We don’t need it,” Dean says, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Sure would be handy for movie nights though. 

“Well, I didn’t need a $20 bottle of organic lavender shampoo, but I’m getting one anyway. We all deserve nice things occasionally.”

Cas grabs two of the blankets without accepting any further protests. Dean laughs, shaking his head. 

“You ready to go save a monster?” Dean asks. 

“Yes, Dean.”

*

The sun is setting as Cas wades into the river again, his jeans rolled up to the knee. He bends down, hands moving over the surface of the water as he speaks in a low voice that Dean can’t make out. 

A minute or two later, just as Dean starts to worry that they’re getting stood up for the weirdest appointment of all time, the creature’s head appears, the tip of its tail swishing through the shallows. 

Cas wades backwards toward the shore, the lizard-monster-thing following closely and making Dean thoroughly nervous. He fidgets with the gun at his hip, ready in case anything goes pear-shaped. 

But it doesn’t. The misiginebig climbs up onto the muddy embankment, and Cas gestures Dean forward. He approaches, holding out the blanket he’d soaked through in the bathroom next to the baseball diamond. Cas lays it down flat on the ground, and murmurs something to the creature. It walks obediently onto the center of the blanket, curling its tail around itself like a giant (and gross) cat. 

Dean helps Cas wrap the edges of the blanket around it, and Dean shudders when some kind of clearly monster-y slime ends up smeared across his jacket sleeve. By unspoken agreement, Cas takes the end of the blanket nearest the head, and Dean takes the tail side. The fucking thing is heavy as shit, so it takes some doing to keep it from dragging across the grass as they make their way to the U-Haul they left open in the parking lot nearest the river. From there, it’s just an awkward, shimmying walk up the truck’s ramp, and then they’re finagling with the tie offs to get the bundled-up monster securely set up for the journey ahead. 

If it wasn’t for the thick steel separating the driver’s cabin from the truck’s cargo hold, Dean would insist on riding shotgun with Cas. But, Cas swears he’s fine with Dean following along behind. 

The drive from Grand Rapids to Lake Michigan is a straight shot, uneventful as Dean keeps an eye on the back of the truck thirty feet in front of him. Dean taps his fingers on the wheel to Zeppelin and sings along for the hell of it. The two hours fly by until Cas flips on the turn signal at the end of Highway 45. Dean trusts Cas’ judgment as he steers them down progressively narrower roads until they come to a dead end. Cas parks the truck and gets out, Dean meeting him in front of the Impala. 

“We’re about a quarter mile from shore. I’m afraid this was as close as I could get us without venturing onto private property,” Cas says. "Given the widespread gun ownership in this county..."

Dean shrugs. “I’ve hauled heavier bodies further.”

He lifts open the roll-up door, and their cargo is just where they’d left it, one glinting eye visible where the blanket has fallen back. 

Cas talks to the monster in that same low murmur for the entire exhausting trek from the road to the shore. When they break through the last copse of trees, the monster starts squirming just as Dean's bum right knee is about to quit on him. 

“I think we could let it out now,” Cas says, grunting and struggling to hold on tight. 

They set the blanket down, untie the straps, and the creature walk-slithers out onto the sand. It turns back to them, eyeing Cas and flicking its forked tongue out in his general direction. 

“Is that how lake monsters say ‘thank you’?” Dean says between gasping breaths, hands braced on his knees. 

“It is. How did you know?” Cas says. 

*

“Alright, mission accomplished,” Dean says, balling up the blanket and stuffing it in one of the trash bags they always keep stocked in the trunk of the car. “But it’s 10:00 PM in fuckin’ Nowhere, Michigan. What do you want to do now?”

“I am a little hungry. Do you think anywhere is open?”

Dean pulls out his phone, clicks the ‘open now’ filter and zooms way out on the map. 

“Ok, there’s a 24 hour diner fifteen minutes north. Sound okay?”

Cas nods. “We just have to return the truck first. There’s another rental facility on the edge of town.” 

“You don’t wanna just...leave it here?”

“I’m slightly sentimental about my alias’ credit score.”

Dean laughs softly. They’ve been running off of Charlie’s supply of limitless credit cards for years - all somehow paid for by what’s left of Roman Enterprises. But it makes sense, Cas keeping a tether to that Steve life, one where he could rent an apartment, hold down a job, and slowly accumulate plants and rare books until he...until he meets someone else. Someone who likes Good Credit Steve with his nice hands and warm smile. Somebody who asks him about the books and how to care for succulents and just - someone better, someone different. Shit. 

“Do you think the diner has cheeseburgers?” Cas muses, pulling him back to the moment. 

“Odds are in your favor, man.”

*

Cas doesn’t just return the truck. He gases it up, even carefully cleans the windshield with the little squeegee at the gas station as Dean texts Sam from the Impala, letting him know the hunt - or whatever this was - is all buttoned up. When they get to the U-Haul place, he helps Cas inspect the truck over for any trace of monster goo before Cas drops the keys into the after-hours box next to the front door.

The drive to the diner is quiet, they’re both clearly wrung out from hauling 300 pounds of lizard whatever-the-fuck through the woods. Dean catches Cas’ eyes sliding shut as he parks the car. 

“‘What does friendship mean to you?’” Cas asks on a yawn after they’ve settled into a booth under harsh fluorescent lighting. The waitress has come and gone, leaving a pitcher of warm-ish water, a couple chipped mugs, and a basket with their tea selection. All decaf green. Figures. 

Dean fiddles with the menu, slightly sticky in that way all laminated diner menus are, and tries to avoid saying something obvious like, _this right here is what friendship means to me._

“This right here,” he says anyway, too tired to lie. 

Cas smiles, and stirs a packet of sugar into his cup. 

“Do you remember that time, with Ishim? In a diner booth much like this one?”

Dean nods. God, Ishim - what an asshole. 

“That’s what friendship means to me. You couldn’t wait outside. You, the righteous man who lasted decades in hell, couldn’t wait outside for five minutes when you thought someone might be being rude to me.”

“Hey, for the record, that asshat tried to _kill_ you, he wasn’t just rude.”

“You didn’t know that at the time. Anyway. Here’s to half-cocked, foolhardy devotion. The true meaning of friendship,” Cas says, lifting his mug in a toast.

“I’ll cheers to that,” Dean says, tapping his own mug against Cas’. 

Over burgers (extra bacon for Dean, a fried egg on top for Cas), Dean takes over question-asker duty. 

“‘What roles do love and affection play in your life?’” he asks, feeling more than a little squirrely about saying the words _love and affection_ aloud, to Cas. Empirically-derived, he reminds himself. It’s science, for fuck’s sake. 

“Hm.” Cas steals one of Dean’s sweet potato fries, and Dean lets him. Because, well. “Angels communicate affection far differently than humans. It took me years to understand, to appreciate the nuances of expression. Especially from you.”

Dean’s knee jerks under the table, jostling their plates with a clatter. Cas ignores it and continues. 

“Love and affection are vital, I think. I’ve seen the impact a drought of both can have on a person. Not to bring up your father again, but...”

“Uh huh,” Dean says, snagging one of Cas’ onion rings. Fair’s fair, after all. 

“I’ve tried to do better with Jack. To express my fondness for him, my enjoyment of his company, my interest in the things that interest him. For example, did you know he has recently taken up frisbee golfing? There is a course in Smith Center that we visit together occasionally. I’ll admit that my skills with blades don’t naturally transfer to a plastic disc.”

“Dude, you _frolf_?”

“That term isn’t commonly used among active enthusiasts, according to Jack’s subreddit community,” Cas says archly, sipping his tea. “Also, he’s become quite invested in the lives of several YouTube personalities, and taken up a vibrant interest in brewing his own kombucha.”

“Oh my god, we’re raising a Gen Z kid.”

“The youth of today are passionate and inspiring, Dean. We should be proud.”

“I am, don’t get me wrong,” Dean says. “Man, you turned out to be a damn good dad."

“Thank you. That means a great deal. So, love and affection, and their role in your life.”

Dean sets his burger down, takes a sip of his tea. Something stronger would help, but he’s trying to be better lately. He can do this. He can’t do this. 

“I think - uh. Shit.” He rubs at his forehead, tiredness creeping in around the edges. It’s so _bright_ in here. 

“It’s okay, Dean,” Cas says, reaching across the table to touch his arm. Dean nearly flinches. That’s fucked up. “Maybe that’s enough for now.”

“No, I can do it. I’m Dean fuckin’ Winchester, I’ve killed Hitler, I can talk about - talk about...love and affection.”

“I’ve pushed you too hard.”

“It’s fine, I just need - I’m gonna get some air. It’s fine, just stay here, alright? I’ll be back in a sec.”

Outside, he pulls his jacket tight around himself and leans against the brick. When he pulls out his phone, dialing Sam comes automatically. 

_“Hey Dean, everything alright?”_

“Yeah, yeah, Sammy. You okay?”

_“All good. So what’s up?”_

“Nothin’.”

_“...Okay? So you called because...”_

“What role do love and affection play in my life?”

_“Huh? Are you high? The hell are you talking about?”_

“It’s for this thing Cas and I are working on.”

_“Like, for another case? That’s weird, man. Even for us. You sure it’s our kind of thing?”_

“No, like a questionnaire - nevermind. Forget I asked.”

_“Wait, no - hang on. Is this from the 36 questions? From that New York Times article?”_

“How the fuck did you - of course you would know about that.”

_“They’re interesting. Eileen and I did them a while back. She says hi, by the way.”_

“Hi, Eileen.”

_“She says that love and affection run all through your life. She’s right.”_

“Shit. That’s what I was afraid of.”

_“You never noticed? You’re like a beacon, man. Anyone we meet - if they’re not a monster, they love you. Hell, even a pretty good number of the monsters.”_

“It’s called sex appeal, man.”

_“Gross, no. That’s not what I meant. Come on - I paused West Wing for this.”_

“West Wing went off the air in 2006. You have time.”

Sam scoffs, offended. There's a brief silence, then Dean hears Eileen laugh in the background.

_“People care about you - it’s like they can’t help it.”_

“Shut up.”

_“You know what? No. You’ve got a lot of people who love you. Good people. They deserve for you to acknowledge that.”_

“Alright, alright. I do, okay? I...acknowledge that.”

_“So why’d you call me about this? Wait, where’s Cas?”_

“Uh.” A semi passing on the highway behind the diner chooses that moment to let off its engine break, the jackhammer sound of it knocking inside Dean’s skull and no-doubt giving him away. 

_“Let me guess. Right now, Cas is inside the bar, or the motel, or the shitty diner next to the highway -”_

“Hey, the diner actually isn’t shitty. They have sweet potato fries.”

_“- waiting for you, because you panicked about love and affection. And you’re hiding outside talking to me.”_

Dean just sighs and rubs at his temples.

_“Dean. Come on.”_

“I’m...gonna go back inside.”

_“That’s a good call.”_

“Thanks, Sammy. Enjoy West Wing. Donna and Josh get together yet?”

_“Spoilers, come on!”_

Dean laughs, and hangs up. 

He feels like an idiot as he heads back inside, the bell tinkling loudly overhead just to rub it in. Cas is still there - no surprise. He looks up when Dean sits back down, a worried half-smile at the corner of his mouth. 

“Sorry about that,” Dean says, grimacing when he pops a fry in his mouth and it’s cold. Figures. 

“Are you okay?” Cas asks, and he looks concerned, rather than irritated that Dean just bolted for the door rather than answer a simple question. 

“All good, just called Sam.”

“Oh. How is he?”

“Enjoying a TV binge with Eileen.”

“I really enjoy the two of them together,” Cas says. “She’s good for him. As he is for her.”

“Totally.”

“So you’re feeling better, then? You seemed a little overwhelmed earlier.”

“Yeah, I guess just - putting words to it. I’m lucky as hell, man. The people I’ve got around me? I get it. Love and affection...they play a big role in my life.”

Cas smiles, warm and relieved.

“The next question might be a challenge as well, but in a different manner,” Cas says, pulling out his wallet and laying a pair of crisp twenties on the table. “Maybe on the way to a motel? There’s one not far. And even better, the Google reviews are without a single recent mention of bed bugs.”

“Sounds perfect.”

*

“‘Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner,’” Cas says as Dean fiddles with the Impala’s thermostat. The temperature tanked sometime in the last couple hours, and his hands are fucking freezing. “Share a total of five items.’ I’ll go first.” 

“Hey, wait -”

“But I would like to make one modification to the question. You’re not allowed to argue with what I consider to be one of your positive characteristics. If you do, you’ll earn another compliment, with interest. Understood?”

Dean swallows, something stupid pinging in his brain at the direction. He nods.

“You’re the most quietly conscientious person I’ve ever known,” Cas says, eyes scanning over Dean’s face for his reaction. 

“Shit, starting out strong then,” Dean says, scratching at his hair and avoiding Cas' eyes.

“You thought I’d pull my punches?” Cas says consideringly. “So, as I was saying, you’re conscientious. Please don’t think I haven’t noticed that you change the Continental’s oil every 5,000 miles on the dot. Or that you always buy Sam his oversized bags of carrots for juicing even though they take up the fridge’s entire produce drawer.”

“That’s...nothing, that’s just -”

“Another compliment, then. You’re generous, with your time, your attention, your affection. This generosity may have been what convinced me to rebel against heaven. It’s no small thing.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Dean says, coming to a too-quick stop at a red light. He pets at the steering wheel in apology to Baby.

“Is that an argument?” Cas says, one eyebrow arched. 

“...No.”

“Alright then. It’s your turn to name a positive characteristic of mine.”

“Oh, that’s easy. You’re a badass,” Dean says. “The best - and I mean that. You strategize, but then you just leave it all on the floor in a fight. It’s really something.”

“Thank you, Dean. The motel is just up ahead, past the Hardees with the burnt-out sign. Okay, next. You’re beautiful.”

“Come on.”

“It’s a fact, and I think you don’t hear it enough.”

“I mean...girls have, uh, said stuff...” 

“That’s not the same, and you know it. Some stranger in a bar skims the surface, but I’ve seen the very bones of you.”

“Kinda morbid. You sayin’ my femurs are hot?” Dean says, pulling into the motel lot, its “VACANCY” sign flickering. 

“It’s not about - I mean, they’re exemplary, but that’s not the point. Don’t make light of what I’m saying.”

“Sorry. Well, back at ya. You’re not bad yourself.”

Cas scowls at him.

“It’s not Jimmy, either. Don’t get me wrong, he was a good-looking guy. But it’s...” he could get into trouble here, “...something about how you carry yourself, I guess.”

“Thank you. See? Is it that difficult to accept a compliment?” 

“Kind of?” Dean says hoarsely. Cas’ expression softens. “I’ll go get us a room. Then we can keep going. I’ll do better, promise.”

“I’ll hold you to it.”

*

Room key in hand, Dean sees Cas waiting for him, leaning against the Impala’s passenger side door with their bags slung over one shoulder and the neck of a mostly-full whiskey bottle in his hand. Dean jerks his head toward room 3 in invitation, and Cas follows him. 

“One bed again. Interesting,” Cas says when they get through the door, like the smartass he is. 

“They didn’t have any - oh, whatever.”

“It’s okay. I enjoyed sleeping with you last night too, Dean.”

“We didn’t - that’s not what we did.”

“English is idiotic,” Cas says, dropping their bags and unscrewing the lid of the bottle. “Alright, I have more nice things to say about you.”


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all, your comments. Gah. Thank you. Truly.

“You can sit down for this,” Cas says, passing him the bottle. 

Dean looks around for cups, but this isn’t that kind of place. He’s rapidly coming to grips with the fact that he and Cas are about to be two guys complimenting each other in a room with one bed and floor-to-ceiling wallpaper in a turkey hunting motif.

He shrugs, takes a long drink, and hands the bottle back to Cas before sitting down on the edge of the mattress to work off his shoes. 

Cas sets the bottle behind him on the ugly dresser after taking his own pull of it. Then, he stands there in front of Dean, his hands going for his tie and then the buttons of his shirt. So now they’re just - they’re just casually undressing in front of each other. That’s a thing that’s happening.

Dean ups the ante. He slides his belt out of its loops and looks up to see that Cas is still watching, his shirt open to the waist. 

“You really don’t know, do you?” Cas asks, cryptically. 

“Is this another compliment?”

“I’m not sure.”

Dean chuckles. “Alright, man.“

“Do you have a spare t-shirt?” Cas asks. “This is my last one. The clothing I packed for this trip didn’t account for a lake monster.”

“Sure.” Dean roots in the bag beside him, handing Cas a shirt at random and feeling vaguely light-headed. 

Cas thanks him and retreats to the bathroom. Dean is more than a little disappointed by that.

*

Dean is flipping through channels when Cas comes back out, Dean’s favorite Stones shirt snug across his shoulders. Cas snags the whiskey bottle from where he left it, taking a shallow sip before handing it back to Dean. 

“Cooking show or Scrubs reruns?” Dean asks.

“Neither.”

Dean clicks the TV off, losing all the light in the room except for what creeps in around the cheap blinds from the over-lit parking lot. 

Cas pulls back the edge of the blanket, slides in beside him. 

“You’re gentle,” Cas says from inches away in the quiet near-dark. Dean hasn’t had enough alcohol for this. Enough alcohol might not even exist. 

“The hell, man.” Dean could think of a few hundred (thousand?) monsters who might beg to differ. 

“Anyone who has seen you interact with a child could attest.”

Dean shifts onto his side toward Cas, and the cheap bed squeaks along with him. 

“I mean, kids are great, who doesn’t love kids?”

“Lots of people. But that’s beside the point. You have a softness that makes the youngest of your species feel safe.”

Dean thinks of the quiet boy from that lake hunt all those years ago, he thinks of Ben before everything went to hell. That poor shifter baby, the kid at Sonny’s. Huh. 

“Thanks, Cas. I thought of another one for you, too. You’re an optimist.”

Cas looks more than a little skeptical. 

“Come on. You rebelled against fucking _heaven_ , you believed in Jack’s potential to be a good kid even though he’s the goddamn son of Satan. And yeah, I know things went wrong sometimes...” Cas squints at him. “But you kept at it. And that takes guts, to think things can get better.”

“Hm. I see your point. I can think of some less-than-flattering synonyms my brothers and sisters might use in place of ‘optimist,’ however. Naïve, foolhardy, headstrong, imprudent, rash -”

“Now who’s arguing with a compliment,” Dean says, prodding Cas’ calf with his socked foot. 

He pulls it back, but Cas follows, nudging his bony ankle between Dean’s. 

“Would you like a massage?” Cas asks. 

“You want to - while you -” Dean sputters.

“Two birds, one stone. I’m fully capable of praising your merits at the same time. You said no one has done this for you in quite some time.”

“You said you done it - had it done to you - _ever_. If anyone’s getting massaged it’s -” Aw, fuck.

Cas grins and kicks the blankets back before rolling smoothly to his stomach and pillowing his head on his arms. 

Dean debates how to do this. He knee-walks on the mattress over to Cas’ side, sitting back on his heels. Then it’s just - he’s supposed to just...

He watches his own hand stretch out above Cas’ back like it belongs to someone else. He’s touched Cas before, hundreds of times. A hand on his shoulder, hands on his face when it’s a life-or-death situation and he can’t control himself. Hands to hold him back, pick him up, but never just for the sake of it. 

“Dean?” Cas says from underneath him, voice muffled. 

Dean shakes himself, letting his palm rest over Cas’ spine, doing nothing. He’s warm through the thin shirt, and Dean’s massively fucked. Way, way out of his depth. He finds the divots between bone and muscle and presses. Cas sighs, and Dean is flooded with how much Cas deserves to be touched like this. 

“This would be better if I -”

Before he can talk himself out of it, he swings his leg around to straddle Cas’ thighs, his hands resting easily above Cas’ hip bones. Oh God, this was a mistake. Even in baggy flannel pants, Cas is gorgeous. The curve of his ass, the tension in his thighs. Dean tries to settle his idiot heartbeat and overheating nervous system sending electric arcs from his fingertips to his brain, sure that Cas can tell. 

He goes on gut instinct, the heels of his hands pressing into knots of muscle on either side of the base of Cas’ spine, just above the hem of his pants. Why he started there, no idea. Cas doesn’t seem to mind, going by the breathy groans he lets out every time Dean presses down. The position is a close approximation of something that’s kept Dean up at night for years, with just the small matter of clothes in this version. 

His thumbs follow the tight planes of muscle on either side of Cas’ spine, eventually sweeping out under the bottom edge of his shoulder blades. Cas keens, unselfconscious and entirely fatal for Dean’s own sense of self-preservation. He’s gonna be getting off on this every lonely night for the rest of his sad life. To get leverage on Cas’ shoulders, he leans out over his back in a way that puts his dick in way-too-close of proximity to Cas’ ass. Cas shifts underneath him, arching his neck into Dean’s grip and not helping at _all._

In for a penny, in for a pound. Dean shifts forward until he’s resting atop Cas’ ass, and wow, that’s...a lot. He curls his fingers over Cas’ shoulders, thumbs digging into the creaky knots at the join of neck and shoulder. Each downward press pushes a little hitching breath from Cas. Cas hums when Dean’s thumb finds a knot at the back of his neck, and when he moves both hands up to dig into his hair and press against his scalp, he earns an honest-to-god moan. Dean drags it out as long as seems even remotely defensible, Cas pliant and boneless beneath him. 

All semblance of necessity gone for him to be _on top_ of Cas, Dean rolls off, pulling his knees toward his chest. 

“That was good for me,” Cas says, shifting backwards into a sinuous stretch. Child’s pose, Sam had called it once during one of his yoga phases. 

“Cool. Uh, yeah. Me too," Dean answers, like an absolute idiot. Abort, abort.

Cas turns his head toward him, a bitten back smirk on his face. Dean takes in the bedhead hair and the glassy-eyed satisfaction on his face that screams _freshly fucked_ and tries not to lose his mind. 

“I mean, I’m glad I could...that it was okay.”

“The pleasure of the act wasn’t overstated,” Cas says like an absolute maniac, like ‘pleasure of the act’ is something one guy can say to his friend in a motel room without it meaning something. Maybe it means something. “I’d like to return the favor.”

“You don’t have to - this isn’t some kind of tit-for-tat...”

“Lie down, Dean.”

His tone brooks no argument, and Dean finds himself face down on the bed before he’s conscious of following orders.

Cas doesn’t bother with feigning propriety, settling atop Dean’s upper thighs without any evidence of an internal debate. 

“Uh, alright. Want me to walk you through it?” Dean asks, conscious of the way his dick is filling up against the mattress at having Cas’ weight on his. Cas doesn’t have to know. 

“That won’t be necessary. You carry the majority of your tension in the lumbar region, which radiates up to the back of your neck and down into your hamstrings.”

Cas demonstrates the accuracy of this assessment when he pushes both hands into Dean’s hips, forcing a groan Dean definitely didn’t intend to let out. 

“Couldn’t fix that when you were reassembling my musculoskeletal system or whatever?” Dean slurs, half-drunk on Cas’ touch already. 

“Believe me, I tried. Repairs to your intervertebral discs, correction of barely-perceptible scoliosis...unfortunately, the human spinal column is prone to injury from repetitive use and improper posture. You’ve spent more than your fair share of time behind the wheel of a car since I pulled you out of hell, and as beautiful as the Impala is, she wasn’t built with ideal ergonomics in mind. Not to mention, all of the beatings you’ve taken over the years.”

Dean hums, melting into the mattress as Cas’ thumbs rub circles into his back. He can feel his t-shirt riding up, Cas’ fingers catching on the edge of it on each pass. Goosebumps rise on his skin when the pads of Cas’ fingers make brief contact. 

“You have an inordinate tolerance for pain,” Cas says. 

“Hey, there’s a compliment I can’t argue with.”

“That wasn’t a compliment. The compliment is that you are capable of receiving tenderness, even after all you’ve endured.”

Cas sweeps his hands over Dean’s back from tailbone to shoulders, and it doesn’t feel so much like a massage as a caress. Dean feels his face heat up and blinks fast. Cas shifts backwards until he’s straddling Dean’s calves, and Dean nearly arcs off the bed when Cas starts in on the backs of Dean’s thighs, just above his knees. 

“Holy shiiiiiit.”

“I did mention your hamstrings.”

“I didn’t think you were gonna - _fuck_ , that’s - that’s...” 

Dean feels something unlocking in his muscles as Cas seemingly finds every knot of tension he’s carried around since he dug himself out of his own grave. At least the deep, good sting of it has solved the problem of his stupid, misinformed dick, at least for the time being.

This is _nothing_ like the way Lisa touched him, all almond-scented body oil and sexy, ineffectual drags of her smooth hands across his bare back. That has been nice, no question. But this?

Cas’ fingers find the tightness on the outsides of his thighs like his stupid body is sending out some kind of homing beacon, and Dean finally flinches. He realizes his eyes are wet. 

“Too much?”

“No, it’s fine,” Dean chokes out.

Cas’ hands still. Dammit. He climbs off of him, placing his warm palm in the center of Dean’s back as Dean works to settle his breathing. 

“Dean. Turn over.”

“Uh.” Dean scrubs at whatever fuckery is on his face - he’s not crying. Absolutely not. It's just been a while. Since he's been touched. That's all.

Cas nudges his hip with his knee. Dean lets out a shaky breath and resigns himself to the fact of how embarrassing this is about to get (and already is). He heaves himself clumsily over onto his back, one arm flung over his eyes like that’ll hide anything. 

“Stay here,” Cas says, as if Dean’s a flight risk. 

Dean listens to him move quietly around the room and the sound of his duffel’s zipper opening and closing before Cas settles next to him again. 

“Sit up, please.”

Dean does, leaning back against the headboard. Cas takes his free hand in his, setting it palm up on his knee. Dean sneaks a glance at him from underneath his arm, curious. He watches Cas unscrew the lid from a jar with a homespun-looking label. Cas scoops out a smudge of whatever it is and smooths it between his palms before taking Dean’s hand in both of his. His thumb begins at the heel of Dean’s hand, and Dean’s fingers flex with how bone-meltingly good it is. 

“Beeswax hand salve. I bought it from a very friendly apiarist at the Lebanon Farmers Market this summer. He gave me two jars for the price of one.”

“That guy with the ponytail? Hate to tell you, but that dude just wanted to sleep with you, Cas.”

“I’m sure that wasn’t it. We exchanged several follow-up messages via his farm’s Facebook page about his methods for successful overwintering of Italian honey bees and practical applications for propolis. He was very...enthusiastic.” A pause. “Oh. I see now.”

Dean laughs, but it’s cut short when Cas applies pressure in the center of his palm. Dean bites off a moan. 

“Your body’s natural responsiveness isn’t going to make me uncomfortable,” Cas says. “In case you wanted to vocalize.”

“Don’t wanna scandalize the neighbors,” Dean jokes as Cas squeezes along each finger in turn, earning a low groan out of Dean. “Fuck, that’s good.”

Dean’s fingertips twitch when Cas drags the blunt edge of a nail down to the base of his thumb. 

“Your life line has multiple breaks and branches, before it thickens and steadies midway. Palmistry is an imprecise art, but there’s a certain poetry in it.”

“You gonna tell me what that means?”

“About what you might expect,” Cas says, turning his hand over to work at the webbing between thumb and forefinger. “For someone who has lived and died as often as you have. It’s an unusual line, to say the least. Few of your kind experience so many temporary sojourns in the afterlife.” 

“Yeah, that part makes sense - I mean the part about it getting more normal.”

“Yes, it’s rather clear on that point. Things get better. Or, they already did. Recently.”

“Huh.”

“Your other hand, please.”

Cas repeats the process on his right hand, infinitely tighter for how many times it’s fired a gun. Dean watches Cas’ face as he works, the concentrated wrinkle between his eyebrows. Dean loves him so much. He’s _in_ love with him. The force of it works him over, feels like stepping into a rainstorm and getting punched in the gut and riding a bike too fast down a steep hill.

“Are you alright?” Cas asks, and Dean realizes he’s staring. Obviously, obviously staring. 

He clears his throat and starts to pull his hand back, but Cas hangs on, thumb rubbing slowly across the thin skin on the back of his hand.

“Yeah, I’m fine. Just got a little in my head for a minute there.” He needs to pull it together. Cas looks unconvinced. “Hey, I owe you a compliment.”

“Two, actually,” Cas says, flipping his hand over and pushing Dean’s shirt sleeve up to his elbow before working at the muscles of his forearm with both hands.

“Alright, I got ‘em. First off, you’re forgiving. All the shit I’ve put you through...”

“Dean,” Cas says, looking at him from such a damn small distance.

“No, I mean it - go back to the beginning. You could have walked out on my ass a dozen times.”

“As if you, after everything, didn’t have cause to do the same.”

Dean huffs. “Not the point. It’s in your nature, man. Not just me, either. Jack, Sam - you see the good in people, even when they’ve fucked up. Maybe especially then.” 

“...Thank you, Dean. Although I believe I learned that from you.”

“Okay, I’m not gonna argue - you know I want to anyway, you already know what I’d say. Alright, last one. You’re adaptable. Nobody’s had to change their own personal rulebook like you, and that takes guts. You went from soldier of heaven to crashing in shitty motels just like this one with Sam and me.”

Cas smiles, face in shadows, but Dean catches something wry at the edges of his expression.

“...What?” Dean asks. 

“I didn’t even know what change was before you.”

Dean swallows, and they’re so, so close. He should - he should do a lot of things. Back up three feet, change the subject, something. He doesn’t.

“But changing kinda broke you, man. _I_ broke you.”

“Better broken and glued back together as my own creation than an unthinking tool of heaven. I don’t miss it, Dean.”

Dean thinks of John. Of the kind of man John was, the kind of man he wanted Dean to be. Dean in his too-big jacket, too young to hold a shotgun right, doing his damnedest. Scared out of his mind that John was going to wise up and realize what a fucking fraud he had for an eldest son. 

“I...get that,” Dean says. “I’m not who I used to be either. But I think...I’m fine with who I am now. Or at least, closer to that.”

Cas smiles, fingers trailing down his arm until he’s giving his hand a small squeeze. 

“Last one,” Cas says. “And remember - no argument, or there will be more.”

“Alright, lay it on me.”

“Those who know you are made richer for it.”

Dean tips forward until his head is resting against Cas’ shoulder. Cas brings both arms up around his back and holds him. 

*

Dean wakes in the middle of the night, 3:32 AM according to the neon green alarm clock on the bedside table. The usual culprit - a lifetime of waking nightmares leads to plenty of sleeping ones. 

Cas’ arm tightens around his waist. 

“What’s wrong?” Cas grumbles, and Dean feels the reverberation of his voice from where they’re pressed close, chest to back. 

"Can't sleep."

Cas loosens his hold on Dean’s midsection, bringing his hand up to card through his hair. 

“Feels good,” Dean slurs. 

He’s probably dreaming, but he could’ve sworn Cas kisses the back of his neck before he’s lost to sleep again. 

*

When he awakens again, they’ve shifted positions. Cas’ head is on his chest, his arm slung low across Dean’s hips. There’s weak, early morning sunlight on Dean’s face, and he squints his eyes closed against it in denial. He lets himself rub at the hem of Cas’ t-shirt sleeve, skimming his warm skin. 

Cas nuzzles at him, throwing a leg over his for good measure just when Dean thinks about maybe trying to get out of bed. It can wait a little longer.

*

There’s a knock at the door. Dean is immediately awake and alert, hand going for the closest gun only to remember it’s across the room in his bag rather than under his pillow where it belongs, like he’s a goddamn rookie out on his first spook hunt. 

Cas is faster. He’s at the door in a moment, angel blade in hand, peering through the peephole. The tension drops out of his spine, and he hides the blade behind his back as he opens the door a crack. He exchanges brief words with the person on the other side before clicking the door shut again. 

“Just the desk clerk. We’re a little late for the 10:00 AM check-out.”

Dean looks over at the clock - just past eleven. Jesus, when’s the last time he’s slept that long?

“Huh. Guess we better get going, then.”

“We’re not in any hurry. I told her we’d pay for a second night.”

“Nah, that’s okay - there’s actually somewhere else I want to go that’s a little more scenic than this room. You wanna go see the desert?”

"I think Sam and Jack might fret if we swing by Arizona before returning to the bunker.” 

*

After a leisurely stop for maple bacon donuts and coffee at a strip mall on the outskirts out of town, they make the two hour drive down the coast to Indiana Dunes State Park. 

Dean fishes a few crumpled up bills out of the glovebox to pay the entrance fee and parks the car in the back of the lot nearest the hiking trails. From there, it’s a half mile walk on a hilly path through the sand dunes until the trees thin out and give way to the shore. 

“My mom took me here once, uh, before,” Dean says, hands stuffed in the pockets of his jacket. “She was pregnant with Sammy at the time, and we were visiting some cousins in Chicago. Or something. Who knows, I was four years old. The sand stuck with me though. It’s still the only real beach I’ve ever seen.”

“It’s beautiful,” Cas says, and they’re standing close enough that their shoulders brush. There’s no excuse for it - it isn’t exactly swimming weather, and the beach is empty. Dean doesn’t move away. “Would now be an appropriate time for another question? The topic is somewhat apropos.”

“Hit me,” Dean says, wandering a few feet away to sit on a well-weathered log. Cas joins him.

“‘How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?’”

Dean laughs, and it hurts. “You already know the answer to the second half.”

“Yes, but I would hear it all the same.”

“My childhood - whatever that even means - sucked ass.” 

Cas sets a hand on his shoulder, squeezing. And that’s a thing they’re doing now, the casual touch. It’s absurdly comforting. 

“Bobby should have been given the opportunity to raise you.”

“Everything would’ve been different though.” Fewer guns, more baseball and learning to cook and having an actual relationship with a father-figure. “Butterfly effect, and all that.”

“It would have been worth it,” Cas says with a shrug, like the possible end of the world is no big thing. 

“So the first part of the question, how close and warm my family is or whatever. I’m gonna get creative in my definition of family.”

“By all means,” Cas says, letting his hand drop to his lap. Dean misses it immediately.

“Did you know I have a text chain with Jody and the girls? Sam’s not on it. We...we’ve been doing a group watch of Orphan Black. So that’s pretty warm, I think.”

Cas smiles. His hair is all in his face, ruffled by the breeze. Dean wants to tuck it behind his ear but resists. 

“And, uh. I send Donna sourdough every couple weeks. She sends back cookies. Gingersnaps sometimes, and man, those are fuckin’ amazing. She puts cayenne and black pepper in them, and, Jesus. I’ll save some for you next time.”

“That’s very generous of you, considering I was not aware of the existence of homemade baked goods sent by our _mutual_ friend until just this moment.”

Dean laughs, knocks his knee against Cas’ in silent apology for bogarting the cookies. “Anyway. Sam, too. We’re - I don’t know. it’s different than it used to be. Warmer, I think. Less fighting about life and death shit. Now it’s just empty threats about serving him medium-rare burgers in punishment for him suggesting we add bluetooth speakers to Baby.”

“Sacrilege,” Cas says seriously. 

“See, you get it,” Dean says, nudging Cas’ shoulder with his. “And there’s you, obviously. So, yeah. Pretty close, pretty warm. That’s my family.”

Cas smiles again, eyes crinkling at the corners. Warm and fond and more than Dean deserves. No one looks at him like Cas does. They watch the waves together for a beat or two, gulls cawing in an overcast sky. 

“I’d agree with that assessment, as your family is also mine.”

Dean seriously considers kissing him. He’s starting to think Cas might let him. 

*

They take a longer route back up the dunes, Cas walking in front and offering Dean an unnecessary but appreciated hand up on the steeper bits. If their hands stay linked a second or two longer than necessary for Dean to regain his footing, no one is the wiser. 

Walking beside each other when the trail widens, Cas asks, “‘How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?’”

“Which version of it? Round one or the redux?”

“I was there for much of the latter. How about the former.”

“She and I were close, back then. I don’t think I ever told you this, but you probably already know. I, uh, had real bad nightmares as a kid. Every night, it felt like. And after one, she’d let me climb in beside her after. Drove my dad crazy - he’d end up on the couch in the living room after muttering something about me needing to toughen up and stay in my own damn bed.”

“You were a _toddler,_ ” Cas says, indignant. “How 'tough' can a child," _oh, air quotes_ , it’s serious, “who still needs help tying his shoes be expected to -”

“I know, I know. Anyway. Mom and me, I don’t think we ever quite found our footing, on round two. Maybe there’s something unnatural about a relationship that skips 35 years on one side and not a second on the other. I didn’t give her enough credit for how weird that would be, trying to be a friend, parent, whatever to two full-grown men when your last memory of them involved diapers and learning the alphabet.”

Cas glances at him and doesn’t argue. Dean thinks that Cas might have understood Mary better than he ever did. “You both did your best.”

“It’s no one’s fault that we couldn’t - that we didn’t - find some way to relate to each other. If we’d had more time, sure, but -”

“But you didn’t,” Cas says heavily. 

“But I didn’t. So. You wanna answer this one?”

“I’ll have to use artistic license to interpret the question, as I definitely do not have a mother in any traditional sense of the word.”

“By all means, art away,” Dean says, holding a tree branch up and over them both as they pass. 

“It’s possible he’d smite me on the spot for drawing this comparison, but Gabriel was the closest approximation of a mother I ever had. I miss him.”

Dean reaches between them and takes Cas’ hand without overthinking it.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh my god it's over. Thank you all SO MUCH for reading and commenting and being the literal sweetest. Love you all.
> 
> [Come talk to me on tumblr!](https://ahurston.tumblr.com/)

“Have you had pho?” Cas asks, scrolling through his phone as Dean weaves through Chicago traffic for the second time in as many days. 

“Once, but it doesn’t count.”

“Why not?”

“It was this case on a college campus, real hippy-dippy place,” Dean says, remembering the lingering smell of patchouli and weed. “The pho was some kind of special-of-the-day thing in the cafeteria. Nothing legit.”

“Take the next exit.”

Dean doesn’t question it, switching into the right lane and onto the ramp to the tune of honks and a couple open-window curses. 

“Next left.”

Another strip mall. Today has a theme, apparently, but Cas hasn’t steered them wrong gastronomically yet. Dean is operating on earned faith.

It’s a seat-yourself kind of joint, and by unspoken agreement they pick a booth along the wall near the windows. It’s mid-afternoon, and they’re the only customers. 

Cas orders for them. The multi-page menu is mostly in Vietnamese and indecipherable to Dean, but the pictures look promising. 

Ten minutes later, he’s sipping some kind of sweetened coffee thing that’s fucking delicious and watching Cas delicately pinch a shrimp dumpling in his chopsticks. Dean pulls out his phone and opens up the tab for the questions. He scrolls down through the numbers Cas has already taken care of, startled to see they still somehow have eleven left to go.

“‘Make three true ‘we’ statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling...’”

Cas sets his chopsticks down carefully on his plate and gives Dean his full attention. 

“Fond. And before you deny it -”

“I wasn’t going to,” Dean hears himself saying. He busies himself with slurping a spoonful of rich broth as Cas studies him. 

“Okay, then. We are also both in this room feeling hopeful.”

“Can’t argue with that either,” Dean says easily. “It’s been a while since we didn’t have something or other breathing down our necks. Who - or _what_ \- do we even have left to kill?”

The waitress chooses that moment to refill their water glasses, seemingly nonplussed at what Dean just said. 

“We’ve run quite short of major enemies, it would appear,” Cas says before nimbly stealing a piece of meat from Dean’s bowl. "I’m feeling an acute sense of hope, and for once, it doesn’t feel misguided.”

“I’m not sure I trust it yet, but I...I think that’s where I’m at too,” Dean says before trying to coax slippery rice noodles into his spoon. 

“And relatedly, we’re both ready for peace.”

“Not picket fence shit and all that - we did just haul a lake monster over a hundred miles in a rental truck.”

“I didn’t say ‘boring,’ I said ‘peace.’ We engaged in non-violent ecological preservation yesterday. That looks like peace to me. Try adding some additional hoisin to your soup.” 

Cas hands the bottle from the condiment caddy across the table to him. Dean drizzles what seems like an appropriate amount across his bowl. He groans when he takes another messy bite. 

“Better, right?”

“Better,” Dean says with his mouth full. 

Cas sips his coffee and smiles at him. “It’s your turn, three ‘we’ statements.”

“That’s hard, man. I usually have no damn clue what’s going on in your mind. You’re kind of a mystery - a beam of celestial intent, I think you called yourself once.”

“I think you know me better than anyone, and better than you think.”

Dean summons his bravery. “Okay, so how’s this. We’re both kinda trying something out, lately.”

Cas tips his head to the side. “Vague, but accurate. Care to elaborate?”

“You know, with the...with all the talking, and the sleeping thing, and the...you know,” Dean says, bumping Cas’ foot with his under the table and leaving it there, ankle to ankle. 

“The affectionate touch?” Cas finishes for him. Dean could die on the spot but that would entail not getting to finish his soup. He nods. “You’re right. We are...trying something out. How do you think it’s going?”

“Uh.”

“I don’t mean to make you uncomfortable. We can keep not talking about it.”

“We’re talking plenty.”

Cas snags one of the lime wedges that came with Dean’s food and squeezes it over his own plate. “But not about that.”

Dean lets a long breath out through his nose, head tipped back against the booth. Cas raises his hands in surrender. 

“I’m trying,” Dean says. 

“I know,” Cas answers, not unkindly. They eat quietly for a minute or two. Or, Cas eats quietly while Dean does the best he can.

“Alright, another ‘we’ statement. We’re both trying to do better than our fathers.”

Cas nods. “I think an argument could be made that we’ve succeeded in spades.”

Dean feels the immediate twist of guilt in his gut when he thinks of one significant outlier. “I know I have a lot of work to do, with Jack.”

“And you finally have time to do it.”

“Fingers crossed and all that. If yeah, if I get the chance, I’m going to set things right with the kid.”

“I have full confidence in the both of you.”

Dean smiles. "I’m also gonna go out on a limb here and say we both aren’t quite ready to head home yet.”

“Correct again. I texted Sam from the car that we might not be back until tomorrow. He responded that we should ‘take our time’ and ‘savor this special experience,’ which I thought was nice.”

“That fucking dick - when we get back, I’m gonna -”

“I don’t understand, why are you upset?” 

Dean just raises his eyebrows and waits. 

“Oh, I see, that was an innuendo.”

Dean sets his spoon down unwillingly and rubs at his temples. 

“And you don’t appreciate the teasing because - because the subject matter makes you uncomfortable.” Cas’ gaze drops from his.

“No! I mean, yeah, but not like that, just -” goddamn little brothers, Jesus Christ. “I don’t really want to hear it from Sam, you get that?”

“I do get that. In Sam’s defense, I asked him if there were any other potential hunts between here and Lebanon, and he insisted he and Eileen have everything covered.”

“Cool. That’s...that’s good. So we can just...”

“Take our time,” Cas says, the corner of his mouth quirking up, eyes soft. 

*

Cas drives the next leg through central Illinois, past sun-faded billboards denouncing abortion and handmade election signs for 1980's presidential candidates. In time-honored tradition, Dean lets him pick the music.

Dean has his eyes closed, leaning against the cool glass of the window. Cas’ choice of the classical radio station is lulling him to sleep, and he only jerks awake when the car settles to a stop. He blinks and squints against the strong sunlight as Cas fishes his wallet out of his coat pocket and gets out to pump gas. Dean catches his eye in the rear-view mirror for a second, and Cas smiles at him easily. He realizes that Cas’ automatic reaction to looking at him these days, is that smile. 

Realizing his legs have gone stiff, Dean decides to sample the wares of the country store/McDonald’s/truck stop they’re at. The bell dings overhead as he enters, and the lady at the counter tosses him a distracted half-smile from behind a People magazine. He heads toward the beverage cases, picking up a peach iced tea for Cas and a Coke for himself before wandering to the aisle of random shit that every convenience store in America worth its salt has. Phone chargers, ugly patriotic tchotchkes, novelty keychains, out-of-season holiday decor...there. Sunglasses. Dean spins the rack, picking out a pair of aviators on instinct. 

When he gets back to the car, Cas has moved to the passenger seat. Dean hands him the sunglasses. Cas turns them over in his hands, puzzled. 

“Figured you could use a pair.”

“Thank you, Dean,” Cas says, looking for all the world like Dean just gifted him something a lot more valuable than the still-attached $8.99 price tag would indicate. 

Dean starts the car, and switches the radio over to an only-slightly-crackly rock station before getting back on I-88. 

“Complete this sentence,” Cas says, “‘I wish I had someone with whom I could share...’”

A million things flood to mind. Midnight reruns of old Stargate episodes, a pitcher of shitty beer at the dive bar close to home, his bed. Instead of saying all that, Dean fidgets with the radio dial until Cas swats his hand and tells him to watch the road.

“All of it,” Dean finally says, deciding on the unvarnished truth. “That’s my answer. I want someone for all of it. The good days and the shit ones, all the boring stuff in the middle. Someone that sticks around.”

He can feel Cas watching him, waiting to see if he’ll elaborate. 

“I know I’ve got Sam for that, but, uh. That’s not quite what I...I don’t know what the fuck I mean.”

“You want to share your life with someone other than your brother. Someone you can count on.”

Dean pulls a face and shifts into the exit lane for I-80. “...Yeah, I guess that’s it.”

“I’m sorry, Dean.”

“For what?”

“I know that I...that I haven’t been that person for you.”

“Hey, no. Let’s not - can we not get into all that? Water under the bridge.”

“But it’s important,” Cas insists. “It's critical you understand - I want you to know, I am trying.”

Dean grips the steering wheel. The car feels small, his clothes are too tight, everything hot and uncomfortably close. He’s gonna say something stupid. He can feel it bubbling up. 

“I don’t want you to have to _try_ though, that’s the thing. I want you to _want_ to stick around. I mean.” Oh, that was more than he meant to say. “I want someone to want that. Want me.”

Silence. Dean fidgets with the cap of his Coke bottle as Cas remains perfectly still beside him. 

“I’m going to need you to pull the car over,” Cas says after a few more mile markers have flashed by.

There’s an off-ramp coming up, just before the bridge that crosses the Mississippi River into Iowa. Dean takes it, heart pounding. He makes a couple more random turns before stopping on a dead end street facing a row of beaten-up fishing docks. He shifts the car into park and stares straight ahead, leaving his hands on the steering wheel.

"Why did you want me to -"

"Dean, look at me." Dean does, and it's written all over Cas' face that he's trying to make a thousand decisions at once. “I’m going to try communicating this a different way. You said - you said we’re trying something out, right?”

Dean nods. Cas lifts his hand to Dean’s face, and Dean fights to stay still for it as Cas ghosts his thumb across his cheek. Cas’ fingers drift to the curve of his jaw. Dean swallows, mouth dry. He realizes he’s got one hand still on the steering wheel, the other gripping the meat of his own thigh as Cas traces featherlight over the shell of his ear and then behind, into his hair. He tugs Dean forward, tipping his face down until he’s pressing a kiss to his forehead. 

“Of course I want you,” Cas says when he pulls back, both hands holding Dean’s face now, and it would take nothing, nothing at all to close the distance between them. 

So Dean does. 

Cas is smiling against his mouth, Dean can feel the shape of it against his lips. This can’t be their first kiss, he has to have kissed Cas a thousand times. Because the alternative? That he’s known Cas for over a decade and never, not once, got to hear the sound he makes when Dean slips his tongue into his mouth? Insane. It takes him a moment to realize he can touch him other places too. He’s been touching him all week and Cas has welcomed it, instigated it even, half the time. One hand against Cas chest, over his heart, the other on his face, angling him until their mouths slip together just right. 

Cas curls his hand around the back of Dean's neck, pulls him closer. His other hand follows Dean’s seat belt strap across his chest down to his hips, unbuckling it and tugging at his arms until Dean gets the message. He gracelessly climbs into Cas’ lap, all elbows and knees until Cas’ arms go around his back, hands hooking over his shoulders and pulling him close. Dean braces a hand on the back of the seat behind Cas’ head, leaning down and kissing the corner of his mouth, his closed eyes, the bridge of his nose and feeling vaguely hysterical. 

The horn of a river barge makes Dean jump, head knocking into the roof of the car. 

“So...Sam’s not expecting us back until tomorrow,” Dean says, breathing hard when Cas’ fingers dip beneath the hem of his shirt and his mouth finds the spot on Dean’s neck that makes him go boneless.

“At the earliest,” Cas says.

*

The closest place where they can get behind a door with a lock is a Holiday Inn Express just across the river, next to the marina. 

“Whatever is going to happen next is not going to take place at an establishment that charges by the hour,” Cas says when Dean balks at the $100 price tag on the sign out front. Dean can’t argue with that. He throws both of their duffels over his shoulder and follows Cas inside. 

As Cas deals with reception, Dean looks over the tourism brochures in a rack on the wall. A twilight riverboat cruise, a guide to the area’s antique shops, a winery, and a museum dedicated to Buffalo Bill. 

Cas taps his shoulder and he startles, just a little. Cas quirks an eyebrow and points at the elevator across the lobby. 

The ride up to the fifth floor is quiet. Dean has one hand stuffed in his pocket, the other fiddling with a buckle on the side of his duffel. He follows Cas down the hallway and shifts his weight from foot to foot as Cas unlocks the door to their room and holds it open for him. Cas clicks on the light before he moves close to Dean, gently lifting the bags off his shoulder and setting them on the desk. 

The room has that clean, mostly-sterile smell that would be out of place in any of the thousands of motels Dean’s spent his life in, and there’s an honest-to-god duvet on the bed instead of a polyester coverlet that’s seen too much. He steps into the bathroom and doesn’t see one bit of mold or peeling wallpaper. Surreal. 

Cas is hanging up his coat in the closet when Dean comes back out, and Dean watches as he pulls off his boots and sets them tidily on the shoe rack before holding out a hand for Dean’s own jacket. 

“‘If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him to know,’” Cas says. 

“Another question, right now?”

“They’ve gotten us this far.”

“Alright,” Dean says, sitting down on the side of the bed while Cas pulls up an armchair. He still feels a little tight and staticky in his head at how close Cas is, a buzzing in his head at the potential of it. Cas sets a hand on his knee, gentle. 

“Nothing has to change, Dean,” he says, kindness in each word.

“I want it to.”

“Are you sure?” Cas thumb follows the seam of his jeans on the inside of his knee. 

“Yeah.” (Is he, though?) “Okay, the thing that’s important for you to know. Man, you know everything already.”

“I think the last few days have thoroughly demonstrated that isn’t true. I’ll never stop learning new things about you,” Cas says with that open fondness that sets Dean back on his heels. 

“Then, you should know I’m...I’m awful at this. Every, fuck, relationship that I’ve had, or whatever? Count ‘em on one hand. They’ve all ended like shit. And that’s on me.”

“What, pray tell, could you have done differently?" Cas says pointedly. "And at what point in time? You’re not to blame for the cosmic misfortune that has dogged your entire adult life. And, as if my own romantic history is any more exemplary. As I told you yesterday, I once married a woman for insurance reasons, and that’s my _best_ past relationship.”

Dean just shakes his head at the mutual tragedy of their backstories. What is he even afraid of?

But this is Cas. Who is he kidding, he’s scared shitless. 

“So you said nothing has to change, if we -” He gestures between them, something clear and articulate he’s sure, “But if I wanted to kiss you again, is that a change?”

“I don’t know,” Cas says with a shrug. “It probably depends on how long you’ve wanted to kiss me.”

Dean laughs, sharp and surprised, and the tension breaks. Cas is joking about how long his desperate ass has been pining after him and he’s laughing, because it’s _funny._ It’s fucking hilarious.

“For the record,” Cas continues, “I’ve wanted to kiss you since at least 2009. That’s probably something important for you to know. For context.”

“Hang on a second -”

Cas chooses that moment to lean across the space between them, one hand on Dean’s shoulder and the other on the side of his face as he kisses him so, so softly. Dean is hardly better prepared for it than last time, and he entirely forgets to breathe at the appropriate intervals. He’s leaning forward so dramatically that he nearly faceplants off the bed when Cas’ lips moves to his neck - where did he learn that, oh right, rebuilt him at the atomic level, he knows things no one knows. He needs - he _needs_ to get closer. The solution presents itself and he clambers forward onto Cas’ lap, a hand tight in his hair to bring their mouths back together. 

“Dean.”

“Shh.”

“I don’t think this chair has the craftsmanship to withstand -” Dean shifts forward, knees pressing into the back of the creaking chair, finally getting things lined up like they should be, “the combined weight of two full-grown men.”

Dean drops his head to Cas’ shoulder, grinning into the skin at the stretched-out collar of his shirt.

“There is a perfectly functional bed right _there,_ ” Cas grumbles in his ear. 

Dean stumbles off the chair and flops back onto the bed in question with his feet hanging off the end. He gets his elbows underneath himself in time to see Cas drop to a kneel. 

“What are you doin’ down there?”

The answer comes soon enough when he feels Cas’ hands on his boots, working at the laces. 

Cas looks up at him, eyes dark as he works one boot and then the other off slower than is probably necessary, slow enough for Dean to feel the blood leave his brain for warmer climes. Cas stands again between Dean’s spread knees, surveying him. 

"Do you have any idea how much self-control it takes to be near you?" Cas says. 

Dean’s mouth drops open. And sure, people have wanted him, wanted to kiss him or fuck him or be fucked by him, talked about his cock-sucking lips and how good he’d look on his back or his knees. But Cas definitely means something else, something more. 

“‘Tell your partner what you like about them,’” Cas says then. “‘Be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.’”

“I think I’ve known you longer than I’ve been alive,” Dean answers, a little breathless. “So I guess I can be as honest as I want. I think,” he laughs, something like giddiness, “I like everything about you, maybe? God, that’s stupid, but I think I mean it? I definitely mean it.”

Cas crawls onto the bed, tugging Dean up with him until they’re both settled on the pillows, facing one another.

“I like things about you that you haven’t even become yet,” Cas says from inches away.

“What does that fuckin’ even mean, man?” Dean says, tipping forward until he can kiss Cas again. 

They get lost in that for a while, Dean’s leg finding its way over Cas’ hip, moving together until Cas pulls away, just a bit. When Dean lets out some kind of nonverbal complaint, Cas is enough of an asshole to grin at him.

Dean grinds against him, Cas' dick hard in his jeans, to prove a point. “As if you’re so unaffected.”

“Not at all. There are just more things I need to say to you first.”

Dean groans and buries his face in Cas’ neck, sucking a kiss into his shoulder as he gets his hands under Cas’ shirt. 

“I would look at you, while I tell you all the things that make you my favorite being to ever walk this earth,” Cas says hotly into his ear, the weirdest pillow talk and yet alarmingly effective. 

Dean huffs. “Jesus Christ, Cas, can we just -” 

Cas’ fingers tighten in his hair, tugging his head back until they’re kissing again. Dean loses the plot, forgets the open threat of Cas complimenting him, _praising_ him until Cas pushes him back just a hairsbreadth.

“I won’t stop, Dean. Not ever,” he says, kissing just under his eye, his jaw, his temple. “I’ll tell you until our days run out, how good you are. How loving.”

Dean just holds on. 

“I’ll teach you new languages, you will know all that I think of you in every tongue,” Cas says against his throat, fingers skimming his shirt up to his ribs before he pulls it over his head. 

Dean returns the favor, then finds the button of Cas’ jeans with shaking fingers. Cas’ steady hands settle over his, pulling his hand to his mouth to place an open kiss on his palm. 

“Dean.”

“..Yy-yeah?” 

“‘Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life,’” Cas recites, that familiar question-asking cadence in his voice. Dean’s almost gotten used to this by now. 

“Uh, pretty sure I just fucked up getting your pants off, so.”

Cas takes mercy on him, helping Dean with the button and zip, then tossing his pants and boxers off the side of the bed before going for Dean’s like a true friend.

“I’ve wanted someone for over a decade without realizing he could want me back,” Cas says once he’s pulling him close and naked to himself. The room is warm, and Dean is shivering. “I’d say my blunder qualifies as one long, embarrassing moment.”

Dean laughs, rolling Cas to his back and kissing down his sternum, over the tattoo on his ribs, across his stomach before nudging his thighs apart and settling in the space he made. 

“Forgive me if I’ve misjudged the situation,” Cas says, petting at his face, his hair. “But I am fairly certain you’ve never done this before.”

“And by ‘this,’ you mean -” Dean cuts himself off, sucking a mark into the thin skin of Cas’ hip. 

“You know - _Dean_ \- what I mean.”

Dean lets his skin go, moving to the other side. “Got naked with someone I - someone I...” He looks at Cas, hoping he’ll fill in the rest of that for himself. 

The corner of Cas’ mouth quirks up. 

“Someone you love.”

“For fuck’s sake,” Dean says, moving to his inner thighs and biting down until Cas groans. 

“Is that a denial?” 

Dean drags his tongue up the crease between leg and hip before answering. “Don’t be stupid. Obviously not.”

“I love you too, for what it’s worth,” Cas says easily. God _dammit_.

“It’s worth a fucking _lot,_ come on. I can’t believe you - god.” Dean takes the head of his cock into his mouth to stop himself from saying anything else. And yeah, Cas might be right that he’s never done this before, but he’s sure as hell done _this_ before. 

Cas’ hands go for his hair, and that’s good, that’s perfect. Dean groans as he takes Cas’ cock across his tongue, against the back of his throat before bobbing up slow. 

“My _god,_ Dean.”

Dean pulls off, licking a stripe up the side of his dick as he kneads his hands into Cas’ thighs. “Flatterer.”

“Quite literal, I’m afraid. I’d worship you, and I fully intend to before the night is over.” 

Dean shudders, hands tightening on Cas’ hips as he bodily fucks Cas’ cock into his mouth to keep a grip on reality. 

“You recall what I said about your effect on my self-control,” Cas gasps, a warning.

Dean would smile, but his mouth is busy. There is something he wants though, first. He drops to his side next to Cas, replacing his mouth with his hand, loose and just enough to keep Cas grasping at the sheets. He kisses at Cas’ shoulder, his chest, sucking at a nipple for a second. 

“There’s something - in my bag,” he murmurs into Cas’ ear. “Inside pocket.”

Cas looks at him, glassy and uncomprehending, until Dean jerks his head toward the duffel on the desk. 

Moving to unsteady legs, Cas ambles over and roots around until he finds what Dean knew full-well was there, holding the small bottle of lube and a condom for Dean to verify. 

“Yup, that’d...that would be it. And, uh."

Cas settles on the bed next to him, gentling a hand at his side like Dean’s about to run off. As if.

“You’ve done this before then?” Cas asks, looking down at him without a trace of judgment. 

“Yeah. I mean, no - not with anyone else, I mean. Just, uh. Alone. Never got further than...that other stuff...with another guy.”

“I see.” 

It’s Cas’ turn to position himself between his knees, and he presses a row of kisses into the soft skin of his belly until Dean settles, relaxing. Cas flips the cap of the bottle, pouring a small amount into his hand and rubbing it between his fingers. 

“You’ll tell me - you’ll tell me if -” Cas says, sounding uncertain for the first time tonight. 

“I’ll tell you,” Dean answers, somehow sure of what, exactly, he’s promising. 

Cas leans forward, sucking the head of Dean’s cock into his mouth as his lubed-up hand trails down behind his balls and lower. Dean tilts his hips up, a previously unknown reflex. Cas finds his mark, the pad of his thumb rubbing gently. Searching in the sheets, Dean finds the lube and nudges Cas’ hip with it. 

“More?”

Dean nods. 

He should have expected this, in retrospect. Of course, Cas would apply as much concentration to getting into his ass as he did to angelic warfare in another life. His free hand rubs circles against Dean’s hip as he circles the tip of a finger just inside, slow slow slow. 

“I’m not gonna break,” Dean insists, an arm thrown over his eyes. 

All that gets him is Cas removing his finger entirely before sucking Dean’s dick into his mouth with enough hot pressure to have Dean arching off the bed. 

“You will not rush me in this,” Cas says eventually, licking his lips and starting up again, tongue circling the head and working him over. 

“Alright, alright, you win. Take all the - _shit_ \- time you need.”

Cas’ finger slides home, and oh god, this is already so much better than doing this alone with bad angles and the constant threat that someone, somewhere is going to interrupt.

“‘When did you last cry in front of another person?’” Cas asks, pressing his legs further open and mouthing at his thighs as he works a second finger in beside the first, slick and painless. 

“Now? Really?” 

Cas doesn’t answer, tonguing over his balls and back up his dick as Dean runs fingers through his hair. 

“Uh, you maybe didn’t see, but last night, I kinda, might have...” Cas lifts his head to look at him, like this isn’t difficult enough. “Cried a little. Yeah. I haven’t felt that close to anybody in a while.”

Cas crooks his fingers just right, making something snap and white out in Dean’s brain. 

“Again, more of that,” Dean groans, pushing into Cas’ hand. Cas obliges. 

“The last time I cried in front of someone was in that barn, as I was dying. The last time I told you I loved you.”

Dean searches his memory. “Wait, you didn’t -”

“I did,” Cas says, pumping his fingers in and out as Dean hangs on to his shoulders. “In fairness to you, I did muddy the waters by telling all those assembled that I loved them too, so you might be forgiven for missing it.”

A third finger. That one’s a stretch, the best kind. Dean lets out a long, slow breath, hiking his knees up to give Cas more room to work. 

“So beautiful. Next question. ‘Tell your partner something that you like about them already.’”

“Your fucking _fingers_ , Cas, come on.”

Cas laughs softly, bracing his unoccupied hand on the back of Dean’s thigh. 

“I like your responsiveness. The sounds you make.” He curls his fingers for emphasis, driving half of a bitten-back moan out of Dean. “You were made to be treated this well. Nearly there. Just a few questions left. ‘What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?’ I’ll go first. My intentions toward you. They’re very serious. Your turn.”

“How insane I’m gonna go if you don’t get your dick in me.”

"Are you ready for that? Like I said, I won’t be rushed."

"Dude, come on,” Dean says, fucking himself on Cas’ hand and knowing it’s begging, not caring at all. “I've been ready for _years._ "

Cas kisses the inside of Dean’s bent knee. 

"Please know I mean this affectionately, but no you weren’t. And I wasn’t either.”

“Alright, fine, sure, but I’m ready _now_ ,” Dean says, gasping as Cas leans forward to suck his dick again. “God, god god god, fucking fuck fuck - _pause,_ wait, stop -” 

Cas pulls off immediately, fingers stilling too. 

“Nothing’s wrong,” Dean says, petting at his face, his shoulders. “I just - I was gonna come and I don’t want to, yet.”

Cas smiles, bracing a hand on the mattress to lean forward and kiss him, slow and lush, until Dean’s heartbeat slows.

“Last question for tonight,” Cas says, kissing over his chest. “‘If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone?’”

That’s easy. 

“That I love you, I’m in love with you, all that - I need those new languages you were talking about,” Dean babbles, eyes squeezed shut. “Take your pick.”

Dean finally, finally feels the blunt head of Cas’ dick against him, hotter than his fingers even through the condom and thicker too when it presses inside. 

“Oh, holy -”

Cas slides home, and that’s - that’s entirely new. Dean hooks his legs around Cas’ waist, hands going for the headboard. Cas pulls back slow, a slick drag. 

“Dean, open your eyes.” It takes effort, but he does, and Cas - Cas looks fucking _wrecked._ “You have no idea, none at all, you couldn’t possibly imagine...” Dean smiles, using the leverage he has on the headboard to meet Cas thrust for thrust. “When I say I love you, you should understand what it means.”

Cas gets his hands under Dean’s ass, tugging him forward until Dean lets go of the bed and repositions himself in Cas’ lap, legs wrapped around his back and Dean’s dick trapped between their bodies. 

“I’m starting to get an idea.” Dean grinds down as Cas pushes up, and he watches enraptured as the flush on Cas’ face travels down his chest. He’s close.

Cas works a hand between their bodies, grip tight on Dean’s dick and Dean lets his head fall to Cas’ shoulder, mouth open and hot against his skin as they rock together. 

“I was made - all angels were made - for worship. The object of that adulation has permanently shifted.”

Dean comes, Cas close behind. 

*

Dean awakens to the buzzing of his phone on the nightstand. He bats at it ineffectually, willing the noise to go away. It stops for a moment before starting up again, somehow louder and more annoying. He answers. 

“What.”

_“Dude, it’s been six days,”_ Sam says on the other line. _“When I said ‘take your time,’ I didn’t mean -”_

Cas stirs beside him, arm going snug around his chest. Dean shifts back against him, his bare ass against Cas’ dick. 

“What do you want me to say, Sammy?” he says, yawning. “The Quad Cities are awesome. We haven’t even done the riverboat cruise yet.”

Cas snags the phone out of his hand, pressing the speaker button. 

“Samuel, unless there is an imminent, life-threatening emergency -”

_“I’m happy for you guys, I mean that. We all are.”_

“Thank you,” Cas says seriously. “Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

Sam sighs, loud and bitchy. _“Got an ETA at least?”_

“Uh...” Dean trails off. Cas is kissing the knobs of his spine, working his way down his back. 

_“Forget I asked. Jack and Eileen say hi. We’ll see you when we see you. Have fun, I guess. God.”_

“‘K, bye Sam,” Dean says, slamming the ‘end call’ button as Cas sucks a kiss just above his ass.

They'll go home eventually.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok for anyone keeping track, yes there are three questions left. There'll be an epilogue, but the main story is done. <3


End file.
